My Stubborn Heart

by Becky Wade

There once was a girl who’d been praying for a husband since the fourth grade. Over the years she’d prayed for his health, his happiness, his protection, and—okay—sometimes for his good looks. She’d prayed that she would meet him when she was meant to. Except that she hadn’t. She’d been avidly expecting and watching for him all this time, from the fourth grade straight up to the age of thirty-one. And though she tried hard to be positive, the truth was that she’d grown tired of waiting. Tired of dating. Tired of breaking off just two bananas from the bunch at the grocery store. Tired of the singles group at church. Tired of living alone. Worse, she was beginning to doubt that her nameless, faceless husband existed at all.

Or maybe she’d missed her husband during the bustle of her college years, never knowing that the shy guy from physics class was the one. Or perhaps, right from the start, God had never intended for her to marry. Or maybe, just maybe—and this was the hope she still clung to despite the evidence to the contrary—her husband was still on his way.

There once was a mother who’d been praying double hard for her son ever since he’d stopped praying for himself.

“No, I’m sure of it. We’re the luckiest two women in this town, because I’m telling you, and mark my words, our contractor is a hunk.”

As a girl she’d forced her younger sister to play Ken and Barbie with her, inventing elaborate stories of their devotion to each other, their happy house, their numerous children. As a young teen, she’d read dozens of those skinny romance novels in the juvenile fiction section. As an older teen she’d made trips to the video store to rent and re-rent movie love stories. Fall in love. Marry. Be blissful. Have babies. That had always been her plan. The fact that she was thirty-one and single left her feeling in weak moments like this one as if she’d somehow missed the train going where she’d wanted to go in life.

She’d always been the responsible eldest child. Outgoing, yes. But never one to swerve from the Road of Right Priorities. No booze, no drugs, no promiscuity. Yet in this one area of her life, the arena of men, she didn’t understand herself.

In the distance, the chapel gleamed. Her ancestor, the one who’d built Chapel Bluff, had taken care to put that little building with the cross on top right at the heart of their property. It reminded her that this family had been founded on what was important. Every generation had carefully instilled their faith in the next, right on down to her. She’d been raised in the church, and her relationship with God was long-standing, close, and easy. He should be enough for her. She knew He was enough. She was only sorry and guilty that at times like this He didn’t feel like enough.

have a plan for you, God seemed to say. It would be nice, Lord, if it could include a man. Silence answered.