At some point early in my painful marital separation, I felt God telling me that my husband and I would one day be baptized together. I don’t remember exactly when or how God put this in my mind, but it was one of the things that helped me hold on through the ups and downs of those difficult three years. Obviously, I realized that if this were to happen, it would mean my husband and I would someday reconcile our marriage. I also felt God telling me that my husband was to initiate it. I was to say nothing.

It was a beautiful picture I held in my heart as a way that my husband and I might one day be reconciled by renewing our faith together and also renewing our marriage commitment. I only told one of my friends exactly what God had shown me. But I always envisioned some very dramatic setting in which this would take place. We would be reconciled, then my husband would look at me starry-eyed and suggest we get baptized together. It would happen in the first few months after we got back together; we’d invite our friends and family; and we would make it a wonderful celebration of our marriage as well as our new life in Christ.

But after we actually did get back together, my husband Marv did not mention getting baptized. A couple of times after hearing baptism mentioned in a sermon, I asked him what he thought about what the pastor had said. He either didn’t have much to say about it at all or he didn’t see that it particularly applied to him. Time passed and nothing happened.

About nine years after we reconciled, one of our pastors preached a sermon about baptism. During the message, my heart burned within me. When the service ended, Marv turned to me and said, “I think you and I should get baptized.” My heart soared.  After eleven years of waiting, the promise was coming true.

A couple of weeks later, with absolutely no pomp and circumstance, Marv and I were baptized together. We signed up only a few days prior and told a few friends and family the night before. The one person who showed up with this last-minute invitation was – you guessed it – the friend I had specifically told about my promise from God. We were able to share our testimony with those present, most of whom we didn’t know, and it was a very personal, beautiful time of renewal for both of us. Having my friend Mary there as a witness to both God’s promise and fulfillment was especially meaningful.

It was probably eleven years from the time I first felt God whisper that promise into my heart until I actually saw the fulfillment of that promise.  And when it came, it looked so different than what I imagined. Was God slow?  Did I hear the message wrong?

We as Christians celebrate Christ as Messiah, our savior who brings salvation and hope to the world. But He as Messiah was not what the Hebrew people expected. They pictured their Messiah to be born in majesty and splendor. They expected him to come with an army to rule this earthly world. They had heard God’s promise, but they expected it’s fulfillment to look very different from what actually transpired.  And to this day, many people have missed seeing the fulfillment of the very promise they long to see take place.

Many of you continue on a difficult journey in your marriage, and while you may have felt God stirring hope in your heart at one time, the promise you’d hoped to see fulfilled is still far from view. Is God slow in answering?

God’s purposes are beyond our own, His thoughts are higher than ours. He has a plan that draws all things together, that brings healing to hearts beyond our own, that reaches down to touch us in the deep places of our soul, which can be so resistant to his voice. God holds all things together. When we look to him and trust him, we will see his promises unfold in our lives…maybe not WHEN we’d like them to…maybe not HOW we’d like them, but they will be perfect in God’s holy sight and will fit into his eternal plan.

As you open your heart in humility to hear God’s voice, I pray His presence will buoy up your heart with love, peace and a new sense of promise.

Read more of my story and how marriages can be reconciled in Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated.