“…But you have kept the best until now!” John 2:10 NLT

Be careful what you wish for (pray for). Because for all you know, God is taking you at your word.

Reading the blog about Rapunzel led to this entry. I have posted that more than a year ago and I firmly believed in that message. I believe it still. There’s glory in waiting.

But the wait, as far as I am concerned, is now over.

Because finally, my prince has come and has summoned me from my tower.

He came in the time when I was not looking. I was done with the look-out route, and I just wanted to wait on God.

He came in a time when my pain was almost unbearable—the price I had to pay for seeking to do things my own way.

He came in a time when love was the last thing on my mind.

I was not ready for him. But God was. He came in the form of a friend. He was not looking either and we shared the aversion to love for that season. And for some grand plan, we both found God—not each other—in the midst of our individual pain. Friendship was forged and God was the agenda.

Little did we know that God is setting us up for something more. We were not aware that love bloomed, like a growing consciousness, in the passage of time. It’s amazing to look back and realize that the man I have been praying for is just before my very eyes and I failed to see it the entire time! I failed to see the signs that my very request for love to bloom out of a beautiful friendship is being answered every single day.

And here we are, almost four years after, becoming more than we hope for and beyond what we prayed for.

I am thankful that the Rapunzel my prince found was not wantonly waiting. He found her in the prime of her life, living it to the fullest for God.

How I thank God for the grace and patience to wait—now that all mysteries have been unveiled. And I thank Him more because the journey that led him to me was worth its toil. It was a fruitful walk—one that is as glorious as finally having him. I never regret having waited so long.  It makes the bliss of his arrival even much sweeter and meaningful. It makes me stand in awe in all gratefulness that he is a gift, from the One who loves me in all the world combined. It is the first and the last chapter of a lifetime, from the God who wrote my most favorite novel: our love story.

Ladies, trust me. It’s worth the wait.

“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.”

–Lucy Maud Montgomery in Anne of Avonlea.