Imperfection, Hindsight and The Single Girl

I've been in a mood today.

Yes, me, in a mood! Today was just one of those days where I felt like 'Will you people just get out of my way?!-- I have stuff to do--- I have plans and I'm not getting anything done!'

Now, don't look at me like that- you've had a day or two like that too I bet!

But tonight when I sat down to check all my email and news feeds what did I find waiting for me but a post from one of my favorite blogger-author-spiritual thinkers Jasmine Baucham. I eagerly clicked through to her post to see what words of wisdom awaited me this time and...as always...found myself struck, humbled and starting over at square one.

Jasmine's question was a simple one- "What would have happened if you got married at nineteen?" but it stopped me cold in my tracks. So much has happened to me since I was nineteen that if I was married then I think my life would be radically different now.

If I was Married at Nineteen:

• I would have been right on track with my timetable and planning a wedding not planning to go to culinary school (apprenticeship).
• At twenty I wouldn't be learning endurance and graduating with a group of people I still call family.
• At twenty-one I wouldn't be learning patience and helping to take care of my dying father.
• At twenty- two I wouldn't be learning Jesus is the light in your darkest self-dug pit.
• At twenty- three I wouldn't be starting in Bible Study Fellowship (Matthew) and learning Jesus requires of us obedience and understands all our weaknesses and struggles because as a man He experienced all we experience.  
• At twenty- four I wouldn't be available to give my Gran the care she needed after her four-broken-fingers accident and I wouldn't have the opportunity to devote my summer to reading and studying.
• At twenty- five I made big plans- for my life, for my business, for my personal habits but I learned in John (ch.11, again BSF) that just because Jesus delays in answering our requests (demands!) that it doesn't mean He's forgotten about us- it just means He has a bigger and better plan then we can see.
• At twenty-six I wouldn't be writing a letter that set a church on fire and contributed to uprooting people from a cancerous body; I wouldn't be able to 'redeem' my (business) time in the kitchen continuing to voraciously devour audio books and every single Vision Fourm lecture and conference I could get my hands on increasing my knowledge of church history and theology.  
• At twenty seven He wouldn't be teaching me to be humble and that I am to trust Him when I have nothing just as much as I trusted Him when I had (fairly) good health, good finances and good business prospects.

Next month I turn twenty-eight. (Twenty-Eight!) I am well aware, much like Jasmine, that the person I am today has been shaped month-by-month, day-by-day by the events, lessons, teaching and actions that I have experienced. I'm sure that if I had married at nineteen God would have gone about His teaching/sanctification process of me with different events, lessons, teaching and actions, He could have chosen to teach me the things I have learned, to grow me, to mature me in a different way. The daily life of a wife and mother way... In my minds eye I can see the brood of children daily gathered around me. Jam stained faces, piles of phonics books and a smattering of Character Studies flash cards, family dinner prep and mealtime....

However, I didn't marry at nineteen or twenty or twenty-one or twenty-seven- didn't even have the chance too....

What I have gained in this 'waiting time' is more precious though. It's more precious because it was His choice for me. All the things I have learned have been taught at His good pleasure to do so. He chose to teach me! He chose to mould me!

At twenty-seven I'm so much more me now then I ever was at nineteen.

Right now I'm enjoying growing (mostly :) ) and I don't plan on stopping- even if the next year or two brings something different along my path. Right now, with God's grace, I'll keep quoting with Jasmine:

"Keep from me Thy loveliest creature, till I prove Jesus' love infinitely sweeter." ~Charles Wesley, Written during his courtship with Sarah Wesley.

And, while I'm at it, I hope I learn how to have fewer moody days...