God Has His Own Time Frame

---by Elizabeth F.

I am 32 and I have been praying for quite a few years now for a husband. I’d love to have a family and I hope that it is in God’s plan for me. 

I am in a relationship with a wonderful Catholic man whom I have known for three years. We have a beautiful friendship and I feel blessed by the time I get spend with him, but sometimes the joy of it is spoiled because I want to know what is going to happen in the future. I want to know that we are going to be happily married. I want to see into the future and know what is down the road. 

I get tired of waiting for my prayers for a husband to be answered. Sometimes I have tried to discern if I should be waiting for my relationship with this man to progress to the next level or if I should be looking for someone else. Am I wasting my time with him when I should be with someone else? Each time I have prayed about breaking off the relationship with him in order to be able to start a relationship with someone else, I have always gotten the feeling that God is telling me to wait. 

But how long am I supposed to wait? I might find it easier to be content and to wait patiently if so many people weren’t telling me that my boyfriend is taking too long. I should be married by now, they say. They tell me I’m getting old and I have only so many years left in which to have children. I get many hints from different people on how to make him propose, and some even say that I should propose to him. 

Sometimes I began to feel desperate and I forget that God has my future under control. I feel like I should be making something happen. 

A few weeks ago was the feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. I went to Mass in a lovely little church. As I was listening to the homily, I was touched by the words of the priest. The message seemed to be especially for me. Father said: “Zechariah and Elizabeth prayed for many years for a child and for a long time it seemed that their prayers were not answered. Often it is that way with us. We may pray for something for a long time, but we do not get it as soon as we want it. God has His own time frame. Zechariah and Elizabeth had to wait for many years to have a child because their son, St. John the Baptist, was to be the herald of the Messiah and had to be born six months before Jesus. When things don’t go according to our plans, remember that God has His own plan for us and His plan may not correspond with ours.” 

“God has His own time frame.” He has His own time frame when it comes to me getting married and having a family. If things were going according to my time frame, I would be married by now. And if things were going according to the time frame of my friends, my boyfriend would certainly have proposed by now! But God has His own time frame. He has a reason why he wants me to be single right now. He has a reason why he wants me to get married when I’m a little older. God has a plan. It may not be as grand as His plan for Elizabeth - to become the mother of the herald of the Messiah, but it is a plan special just for me. 

How hard it must have been for Zechariah and Elizabeth to wait all those years to have their prayers answered. Father mentioned in his homily that in their culture it was considered a curse from God if a couple was not able to have children, so they were probably wondering what they had done wrong that God was punishing them by not giving them a child. Yet all those years they persisted in praying for a child, even when it no longer seemed possible that it could happen. God answered their pray in His own time, not in their time. They didn’t have their child at what would have been considered the ideal time of life, when they were still young. 

I can just imagine how many of her friends were constantly reminding Elizabeth of how few childbearing years she had left (just like some people do to me!) and the kind of pressure she was under to conceive before it was too late. And then it seemed it was too late. Her child bearing years had passed. But it was in this time when she could have so easily given up praying and trusting in God, that her prayers were answered and God’s special plan for her child was revealed. It was worth waiting all those years to become to mother of the Messiah’s forerunner and herald and to entertain the very mother of the Lord in her home.

During this time of waiting in my own life, I reflect on Elizabeth’s prayerful faith and I pray for the same trust in God’s perfect for my life as she had. Though I cannot see what my future holds for me, and if and when I will be married, I believe that it will happen in “God’s time frame,” according to the perfect plan that He has laid out for my life.

Elizabeth works as a secretary for a Catholic Church and attends college through online classes. She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her little nieces and nephews. She loves gardening and arranging flowers and she grows and arranges the flowers for the sanctuary in her church each week.