2017, freshly turned 18, and I told the Lord ‘by 21, I want to be be married with a child on the way’. I'm 25, still single and no child. But this isn’t a woe is me moment, I am not angry with God and neither is this space a conversation about waiting on God for the one. But more than anything, I am so thankful. Thankful because if I had it my way, the marriage I so desired at 21, would’ve possibly ended in a divorce. I would’ve been bitter and angry, dealing with un-dealt traumas, nothing to show for myself. And I would’ve probably been a single parent going in and out of relationships seeking for someone to complete me. BUT GOD!

But God in His mercy, love and wisdom highlighted the following things to me:

1. My desire to marry young came from my parents’ goal for me and cultural pressures/expectation. I didn’t actually know what I wanted. Marriage and good grades was all I knew and was told to achieve.

2. I had to go through the necessary steps and seasons for me to mature and develop as a person before being a wife.

And once I understood, the journey of transformation, healing, unlearning and learning and career building began. Oh and its still going!

It has been a journey of discovering and embracing purpose and identity. Healing, learning how to be a friend, and daughter. Understanding sisterhood and being intentional. Finding my feet in leadership..the list goes on.

The desire (though its still a desire for myself one day) has shifted from primarily wanting marriage but wanting to know God and navigating how I can be a better woman than I was yesterday whilst unpacking the various things that make me the woman that I know today and how those various aspects of me can relate to God and people. How it can serve God, His people.

Isaiah 55:8-9

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

God’s way is the best. It is wisdom. It is safety. If it had not been for God, His yes and His no. I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today. Choosing and trusting God has been the best decision I have made so far and it is one that has brought us here…9D Woman.

In this journey I have discovered that I am more than a girl that wants to marry once day. But. I am a woman who has purpose, I am a female, a friend, a daughter, a sister, and influencer, I have a standard and in its season I will be a wife and a mother. There is so much to me that can and will glorify God besides being a wife and just as I have been and still and journeying with this, I want to invite you, my fellow readers, my amazing ladies to join the journey with me, lets unpack, lets learn, lets heal, lets become. The multifaceted woman will become all christ has called her to be.

Love,

Tatenda x