Resilience in the Wait

Have you been waiting on God for marriage? My guest thought marriage was her birthright and took on life with the focus. With a timeline in mind, she was certain God would follow through.  Not always doing it His way she finally surrendered to God. She decided she was called to singleness.

Tune in to the first of a three-part Relationship series to hear her testimony of heartache, surrender, and eventually marrying the man God surprised her with.

#singleness #waiting #marriage

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Transcript

Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode of Constant Faithful Secure. I am your host, Stacy Ann Smith, and today we have a wonderful conversation with my really good friend, Kadiene Wilmoth. Married name, bere tings. bere tings already. You know, this is gonna be the first of a series of three episodes, and we're gonna .

Show how God is constant and faithful in all our relationships through singleness, through reconciliation in marriage. He is with us. So I want to welcome today my friend Kadiene. Hi pretty 

lady. How are you? 

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. 

So good to have you here. Newly wed. How you feeling?

All the things. 

All the things. We're gonna get into all of them today. All of them today. So before we go into now, tell us about your journey to faith. Like are you always a church girl? Were you always a church girl? 

Pretty much. 

Pretty much. Yeah. Like most Jamaicans grew up in the church. Mm-hmm. Spent every Sunday going to Sunday school.

, became baptized, knew at an early age, like really early, was able to identify that there is a God and that he is sovereign. Well, I didn't know what sovereign meant as a little child, but there was a a, a God in control and he cared for me. Mm. And so really early I, I had that, that understanding became baptized at 15.

, yeah. So always walked with the Lord. 

Okay. 

So in this journey and this walk with the Lord, did you ever have any conversations with God or any dreams about what your future would be in terms of marriage and relationships?

To be honest, yeah. , Marriage I felt was my birthright. 

Okay. 

So, initially I blamed it on my parents for, I had lots of dolls growing up and so I thought it was just a function of how I was socialized initially.

So, you know, you love babies, you love dolls, and you in play, you are imagining yourself eventually becoming an adult and taking on that role of wife and mother. 

Okay. 

So there was that. I grew, I'm a country girl, so growing up in the country, I, to this day, my grandmother's voices in my head, you must learn to, you have to learn to wash, you have to learn to cook and clean and sew and do all the things because that's how you're going to take care of your husband.

Yes.  , 

my parents got married when I was six months old, so for most of my childhood, I was in a home with mother and father. . So marriage was the way, . Then as I developed in my Christian walk, that's when I took on this idea that it was my birthright because this was God's design for my life.

Okay. Okay. 

So it was the normal natural progression that my life was going to take.  And as a daughter of God, it was mine to have, that's how my life was going to unfold.  If you ask my high school friends, they may remember, if you asked Kadiene in high school, what do you want to be when you grew up?

Pastor's wife. That's another story. We'll talk about that another time. Pastor's wife stay at home mom. 

Okay.  Okay. 

So that's how much,  I desired marriage.  And and that desire never went away.  But ...next question. 

I'm like, Ooh, I think something's coming. Something's coming. Something's coming. Okay. 

Yeah. , 

the desire never went away and I was,  very confident that, you know, it was my portion to speak Bible, my portion in life. I remember in my early to mid twenties reading a statistic that, you know, Christian women once they pass a certain age, the likelihood of marriage decreases.  And that statistic just flew over my head because, oh, that will never be my story. 

Was it your story? 

Very much My story, well, not quite my story, because the statistic was they would never marry. Mm-hmm. But the concern of it not happening for me wasn't a concern at that time. 

So with this certainty, it's your birth, right? How did it affect how you entered and how you handled dating relationships? How did it influence your dating experience? 

That's a very good question because in my journey with the Lord, which has been very much like that, of the children of Israel, I love their story because I see me in their story 

 I see moments of, you know, faith, activated and the victories that we have when that happens. And then moments when you are "the Lord has departed from me and Father, what is this about"? This is not what I expected and you've, you're leaving me here to die. So my journey with the Lord hasn't been a straight path.

I haven't always walked faithfully with him. How did that affect my dating relationship? What I realized in retrospect is that the challenge wasn't with the wait. 

Hmm.

And I'm gonna come back to that. I want you to bring me to back to that. 

Okay. 

The challenge was not with the wait, but yeah. Ask me how this desire for marriage, how it shaped the dating relationship.

With the desire... the desire became perverted when I applied a timeline, my timeline. 

Okay. 

So I had the dream. Mm-hmm. And it's a godly dream. Marriage is a honorable thing. It is God's design. But I imposed a timeline on when it should happen. So it should happen by the time I'm 25 and then the first child will come at 27, and then I'm gonna have, you know, two or three by the time I'm 30 and, .

And what I realized... realized, now, only in retrospect is that by doing that I really was I really wrestled control out of God's well. I can't wrestle control of God's hands, but

I replaced his lordship with my need for control. And so that influenced decisions I made to date because if I'm going to get married now by 25, it means I must date. Mm-hmm. And so I started dating after high school, like right before university. And my first relationship madly in love, and I thought it was going to be the forever relationship.

And so, you know, three years after being the good faithful Christian girl, you know, walking in purity, I somehow... bought into a lie that, oh, he's going to be my husband anyway. And so I gave in and, and you know, the virginity went with that. Mm-hmm. And that decision started a cycle of failed relationships.

What do you mean by that? 

Meaning the relationship didn't last. 

Mm-hmm. 

I thought it would be my first one and only and forever love. 

Mm-hmm. 

And when that didn't last, it didn't stop me from ..At early twenties, it always felt like there was a list of eligible bachelors waiting to be dated. And so, you know, I just moved on to the next relationship and the next and the next.  And so by the time I was drawing now to my mid twenties, I've had, I had, well the mid twenties, I've had a couple failed relationships by then, but still not daunted because this is my birthright, it's gonna happen, and you know, I must put myself out there and just wait to encounter the right one.

And in time it will happen. 

Stacy, you love Christmas. I know this. 

I do. I do.  

You look forward to it every year with excitement. You want to decorate and you want to, you know, plan the dinners and all the surprises and things with family. Do you ever go to bed and cry yourself to sleep, because Christmas isn't tomorrow?

No, no. I know it's coming. It's coming December 25th.

You know it's coming. You know it's coming. And that's what I meant when I said I learned that waiting.... The issue isn't with waiting.  Because waiting is a natural part of life. 

Yes. 

We've been doing it from conception. 

Yes. 

We've had to wait. 

Yes. 

The revelation hit me maybe two years ago.

One day I was reading in Hebrews, Hebrews 10, I think it was talking about you know, our great high priest, how he completed the work on the cross. And in Hebrews 10: 13 it said, "and from that time", speaking of Jesus, "he is seated with God and he waits". He's seated with Jesus and is waiting for that time when his enemies will become his foot stool, and that thing hit me. The Holy Spirit...

It just became so clear. But if Jesus is waiting, then okay, waiting is natural. Perhaps even biblical.  Spiritual. There's a purpose to it, but it made it so clear to me that there's an appointed time for everything. And I knew that as a Christian.  But when you're in the wait, you lose sight of that.

Speak it girl. 

You lose sight of that, that there is, a God who is in control and has an appointed time for everything concerning you. And that's what I meant when I said I realized it's not with the wait, it's with the uncertainty because, and the uncertainty only came about because it was not unfolding in the way I had envisioned it, dreamed it wrote it down, you know?

Journaled about it. Prayed about it. And really

at the heart of it, I think is a difficulty we have as human beings to accept the Lordship of Christ. And I know as Christians it may seem, it may seem, I don't have a difficulty, but the truth is, I think if we're honest with ourselves, we 

do 

have a difficulty

with his lordship. In our context in Jamaica, most people can perhaps relate to landlords.

Mm-hmm . 

You rent a house, you have a landlord. The landlord has ultimate responsibility. You occupy the space, but he has ultimate responsibility. Not long ago, you and I, we were in a a worship session. It was at Signature Women and during worship. I don't remember if it's something one of the worship leaders said, but the scripture came back to me.

I heard in my spirit, you are not your own.  And my initial thought was one of, ultimately is rebellion, but it was, it was one of resistance because I'm like, okay, God, here you go, trying to take away my freedom. You know, I, I'm not my own, so it's, you're restricting me. And God was so kind, it didn't take long for him to correct me through his Holy Spirit in that same session.

I didn't leave that moment without the correction. He said, "Kadiene, Me being in control is a good thing. You are not your own. That's a good thing. And I realized, oh my God, it's true. Because at the time there was a lot happening, a lot of decisions that I needed to make, a lot that was being planned. And, you know, I was waiting for things to, to come in, in, to come together.

And when the Lord said that to me, You are not your own and that's a good thing. I was like, okay, I can relax 

You can relax. 

You're mentioning here about the things that Lord was dealing with in your heart, and I want to mention a journal entry from your website, Her Heart Restored. The journal entry is called Of Termites and Tattered Hearts and in this journal entry, you said "like restoring a , the work on my heart is sometimes messy painful and tear filled". Now you're in your twenties and you're doing things your own way. What is this process of God showing you things in your heart that is getting you to where he wants you to be? 

Hmm.

You, you've mentioned twenties, but that's a process that never ends. Mm-hmm. That particular entry was written not too long ago, like a few years ago. 

Like 

that was probably, I don't know, four years ago.  The process looks like different things. Okay. But I think what's important for me to say is, as much as I've had my times of rebellion .

My times of, you know, just being angry because that's, that's what happened. Because I imposed a timeline on this godly desire that made room for disappointment. Now, the, the scripture says, absence deferred.. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick"

. Sick. Mm-hmm. 

What was my hope? My hope was to get married. But what was, what was the hope?

Not just to get married and live a life aligned with God's will, but to get married at a certain time. You know, 

You had a idol

in a certain way. So my hope was perverted. Mm-hmm. My hope was not in. Okay. Yielding to the Lordship of Christ and walking out his perfect design for my life.  My hope became the thing.

 And that is where the sickness of heart, the disappointment, the near bitterness,  there were moments when I was angry at God. . Because I couldn't understand. God, I believe all the things you say about You, but this area of my life doesn't look like the goodness. I don't see goodness running after me.

I don't see faithfulness in this area. I remember saying things to God like "I would trade it in other areas that were less significant to me, less important to me". 

Wow. 

I would trade the blessings you've given me in these other areas for this thing that I desired.  So, The sickness of heart is directly linked to where we place our hope.

Okay, so tell us about that 

Messy, painful, tear filled. You know, when God reveals... when you're a child of God, you, when you're walking with Him. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin anything that's wrong in our lives. And seeing, seeing things within yourself that don't reflect Christ, it's painful in the moment.

Yes, it's painful. It's not...

I can tell you about 

...that the ugliness, when he reveals your ugliness, it, it's painful. But he, but he's kind and gentle when he does it. I can think of my, one of, perhaps my last, technically we hadn't gotten to dating, but let's call it a dating relationship. Before, you know, before where we are now, 

before Kalando!, 

before the one the Lord had assigned to my life, came into my life in that way I connected with this wonderful guy on Bumble. . 

What is Bumble?. 

Bumble is a dating, dating app where you connect with people. Now, I had tried eHarmony before and had met wonderful people. And I was at the stage now. I was like, oh, let's just try Bumble. Yes. The, the timeline I'm way past the timeline, but I'm, I haven't given up hope.

Mm-hmm. 

That process in itself though there were moments when I did give up hope but let's talk about this moment. So I met this wonderful guy and was getting to know him and really liked him. Like he checked a lot of the boxes. And I was really hopeful that, you know, this would evolve into marriage.

 It was still early days, but I got a sense, I was very prayerful about it and I got a sense in my spirit that this was not the one, this is not, this isn't going to lead to marriage.  And I remember one evening I went to bed just devastated because I'm like, here we go again, Lord. 

Oh my goodness.

Like this time I'm not even trying to do it my way. I'm doing it with you. Like I'm praying all the prayers and I'm you know, walking in purity now. And this is, you know, this is what you desire and therefore, you know it's supposed to work out. And I was bawling like I had done many times before.

And as about to get really deep in my sorrow and the Holy Spirit was so kind, he said to me, Kadiene is your faith in me, or the outcome?

Like just like just dry up the tears that tears just retract because I had to like seriously consider.  Why am I so devastated? Yes, I'm disappointed because I'd hope for this thing, but why is this devastation? This is a sickness of heart, now, right?  And I realized that my hope was in the outcome. Because, you know, when he asks us the questions, it's to really cause us to see where we're at.

 If you had asked me, Stacy, that same week, Kadiene, you know, where's your hope? I'd say, of course I'm hoping that the Lord will, my, my faith is in the Lord. You know, I'm expecting him to do what I want the outcome to be. And so that that moment was, was a hard revelation, a hard thing to see about myself that really my faith was not where it should be.

I had misplaced my faith  in an outcome I desired rather than in a God who is faithful. 

Wow. Wow. Wow.  

That is so powerful and it's a powerful lesson to learn. And it's also evidence of God's constancy in your life. Because as I listen to you share, what is very evident to me is that with each stage of the surrender, God was there teaching and prodding, even in the rebellion, even in withholding people from it, working out to marriage was his constant faithfulness.

Mm-hmm. 

And so, yeah, 

That's very important because, my walk with the Lord wasn't a straight line, but even in my anger, and I'd really want to encourage women even in those moments when you're mad at God. Mm-hmm. And when you don't want to talk to him because the things he has to say are not on your agenda.

Keep the communication open, keep the dialogue. That is perhaps one of the most important things I learned and I think it's perhaps why I'm now at the place of spiritual maturity and have, this blessing of now being in a godly marriage, I think keeping that connection with God,  I wouldn't have been here without that.

 So I know it's normal to want to stay away from the things that we think, you know, hurt us and God is no different. We, we think he has betrayed us. We think, cuz there were moments when I felt betrayed. I'm like, this doesn't look anything like the God I read about like you are... You are withholding goodness from me.

And this is contrary to what I believe about you. But I never stayed away from him. I poured out my grief. Pages on pages of grief. Right. I would just journal, sometimes I couldn't even pray, and I would find scriptures to just read through, yes to, to help, to, help me just keep that connection, with him when I couldn't pray.

I remember one time being again in despair over this very thing, this very area of my life, and just picking up the phone and going to YouTube and a song that will remain a blessing to me this day just ministered to my spirit. I would listen to the sermons even when, you know, I was hemorrhaging faith is how I describe it.

Wow. 

Hemorrhaging faith, hemorrhaging hope, like there were times I didn't believe that it would happen for me. 

How did you ... as a person in the place of, I'm beginning to wonder, and it's hard to believe for me right now, it is very hard to believe, and I think it's something that I... I love what you said about staying in the word, staying around sermons, staying in His presence, which is a big part of staying resilient in your faith.

Because if you don't, then all the lies and the despair, the doubt they're gonna swallow you when they feel overwhelming in those moments, it will swallow you and put you out. So how did you overcome? Overcome those moments of the faith is hemorrhaging? And then take us into when God now brings you into where you are right now.

Definitely staying connected is essential. I can remember moments going to Bible study By this time, you know, it's covid and we're online. Well, my online study started before Covid, and I can remember leading Bible study in a time when I was grieving for this area of my life. And I can remember waking up Saturday mornings facilitating Bible study, shutting down my laptop and just bawling.

Wow. 

Because, God, I know you're there. I know you're real. But for this thing, I, I don't know. And, and, and so battling the doubt. It's funny you say you have doubts for this area of your life because we're friends and I happen to know that there are things that have been prophesied over your life concerning this area.

Yeah. 

What was a real struggle for me and might be a struggle for some of your listeners. 

What do you do when there are no prophecies for this area over your life? So I am among a group of Christian friends and it seemed like all of my friends had prophecies that, you know, this will come to pass and this is what you're gonna be and this is what your marriage is gonna look like.

And your children. I never had a prophecy about that.  And I remember In one of the seasons when I was walking closely with the Lord and we were friends when we were friends, 

Cuz sometimes we, don't feel like his friend 

Right, but I remember that, you know, I was talking to Him through journaling about this particular doubt that I had, and I was saying to him, God, I believe that, you know, marriage is your way and in a general sense, It, it is what?

It's your design, but I'm not sure that it's for me. Because you haven't, all my friends have these prefaces. I don't. So I was battling with doubt. And as I was journaling that to Him, and I wrote it down, and this was 2019.  I wrote to Him, one of the things that have often bothered me about this area of my life was the lack or absence of some kind of prophecy concerning that marriage is your will for me.

And I went on to write about it and why I was writing this to Him. Because I was reading a scripture that says we're to hold on, you know, patiently and endure for the things promised. And I'm like, but this isn't really, I'm not sure it's promised to me. Because my journey has me doubting that it's promised to me. And as I was in my time of devotion,  I somehow came upon Mark 11:24.

 And it says, "therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours". This is the same devotion devotional time with the Lord. And the Holy Spirit said to me, and I wrote it down there, is my promise. It is both a promise and an instruction. A promise that if I pray in faith, asking for a husband, I was so specific asking for a husband and family, it will be mine according to His will.

Now, I had been praying for years, but what was different about this encounter? I wrote it down today instead of worrying or wondering whether it will happen, I promise to pray for you. Speaking of a husband I didn't know existed.  My husband and my children, I will pray you into existence. And I don't want people to misinterpret this to suggest that we get everything we pray for.

True. 

But this was something, this was my experience. I had been praying for a husband before.  I'd gone to... Like I said, all the things Stacy. Pray for your Future Spouse challenge was something I had been doing at this point in 2019,  I had probably done it twice before. So I, you know, knew that praying for a husband that I had yet to meet was a thing to do, but something happened through this encounter with the Lord.

I purposed in my heart to start praying in my doubt.  So I wasn't sure. I didn't know if it was God's will, but I determined in my heart, God, if it doesn't unfold, it's not going to be because I didn't have the faith for it. 

Wow. 

And so to hold on to faith, I took it even a step further than just being diligent in praying for this area of my life.

I bought a journal and I started to write prayers to the husband that I didn't know existed. And so I would write those prayers and I would date them and you know, it would just be dreams and desires or things the Lord laid on my heart. Something I encountered that you know, I wanted him to know about and how, you know, what the Lord was doing.

And I did that as an act of faith to strengthen my faith because I didn't believe when I started it, I didn't believe that there was someone that the Lord had for me. 

Mm-hmm. So take us now to November, 2020. What is it? 

21. 

21. We, in pandemic time.  Talk to me. 

So November... So November, that story I shared earlier when the Lord said to me..

I was starting to mourn a relationship, a budding relationship, that I realized sensed the my spirit wasn't gonna work, and I started to mourn. And the Lord said to me, is your faith in me or the outcome of this? And I had to repent. 

That was. November, 2021.  And when that relationship you know, ended or the promise of the relationship when it was put on the table, okay, this was not going to happen.

I wasn't devastated because of the encounter I had with the Lord. But I was still hurt.  And.. I was, it was a weird place to be. Like, I wanted to cry out to the Lord- "God, please speak to me because I need your comfort", but I don't really want you close because this is .... 

This goodness isn't, this isn't good.

You know, I don't want you close, but I know in you I can find comfort. And in that moment of prayer, I reached over and I picked up a book. I have this devotional book. The title is Hope and the title of the book, The Binding,  yeah, the title Binding is staring at me and just calling out to me and I'm, I'm like," no, no, I don't want to hear it".

I don't know. Long story short is I picked up the book and the open date and the devotional said " Called to Suffer" and I'm like, okay, I thought I was going to get comforting words, but I guess not. 

The opposite of comforting. 

 Opposite of comforting, Called to Suffer, and the writer of the devotional was really talking about how.

What our expectations are when we come to Christ and we expect all the good, but we don't realize that there is a call in that to suffer with Christ. And the suffering looks different for everybody, but there is a call to suffer.  But what the Holy Spirit started to speak to me through the devotional, my question to him was, God, are you saying what I feared all along, which is that this is ...singleness is my lot in life?

 And I started to bawl, like bawl out on the floor. There's no floor in my house that I didn't walk the house and drop on and bawl because I'm like, okay, this is confirmation now. What I had fared all along, was that singleness might not be my... marriage, might not be my portion. This is God now confirming it to me.

I was so convinced that he was saying to me, I'm called to suffer and my suffering looks like being single.  

And in that unusual encounter, because I had never before, had an encounter like that- where I was bawling and the Spirit was speaking. Speaking through images, speaking through scriptures.

The only thing I could think of, not to compare myself with Jesus, but I could think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and how he suffered in that moment  to surrender his will to the to the Lord. And that's what it felt like to me. It felt like I was putting to death the thing I had desired the most for my entire life.

Did it happen that way? 

In the exchange that was happening between me and the Holy Spirit, I'm bawling and there's a question. God, I don't want this, but if this is what you want, I don't want it, but okay. I don't want it. God, let this not be my cup. I don't want this to be my cup, but if this is what you want, I can't win. Okay. 

So there was that wrestling with the Lord and a surrender. A supernatural surrender that came out of that encounter with the Lord. I couldn't talk about it for days. I'd messaged my friends and said, pray for me. I can't talk about what's going on, but something is going on. 

And it took me days to be able to, to share with anybody what happened in that encounter, because back then I believe what the Lord was saying to me was singleness is your portion. It is your call to suffer with me. 

What I didn't realize, I'm married now. So clearly 

clearly 

that was not God's call.  But what happened in that moment was a sincere surrender to his Lordship, the thing I had wrestled with this entire time, not realizing that ,that is what I was wrestling against.

That is where the victory was won in surrender. 

Amen. 

The victory is in surrender. Wow. I think that's a perfect way for us to, to segue into an ending. There's so much more that we could say. But for time encourage somebody listening right now who is waiting. Just encourage them. 

Wow. God is good. Like. I remember sharing with you when, you know, after I connected with my now husband and you were very, you know very much a part of that journey.

I remember saying with you, when I see the goodness, when I see the grace, when I see the blessing that I have, you know, in this relationship, in this marriage, 

It made me.. It makes me...

I feel foolish for ever, doubting God. I feel foolish for ever not trusting him because he is good. He's always good. 

There were relationships I cried over and prayed to God to restore. And only now I can say thank you, Jesus, for being sovereign over my life and not restoring those things, those relationships that I thought I wanted.

I can remember being in communion in my early twenties, a communion service, and I take the bread and I take the wine, and I hear very clearly out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit said to me, "flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone". And it startled with me because we know those words spoken by Adam when God presented Eve to him and it, it didn't make sense like, Lord, what I was again, I was early twenties, never forgot it.

And I think somewhere there it made me wonder, was the Lord saying I am to be His, like in my lack of spiritual maturity back then, I wondered if it meant, and perhaps that is where the seed of doubt was planted, if it meant that I was never going to be married. Because the Lord spoke those words to me. I'm like, why? Why? Why are you speaking those words to me?

How I would encourage someone who is now single desiring marriage?

More than anything. More than anything that you desire, more than anything that the Lord can give and it, it is His within His power to give you any and every good blessing, but more important to him than any of it is your heart, your relationship with him, your place with him in eternity. 

You are indeed...

It is his desire for you to be flesh of his flesh bone, of his bone, to be so his, that nothing can separate you from him. Acknowledge that that is your supreme calling. Pursue that. Live your life from that place.

It would've saved me a lot of heartache if I had surrendered to God's Lordship. If I had not had my spiritual identity perverted to where marriage became this idea of a birthright. 

But, accepting and understanding that more than anything, it's my heart that God wants and my heart to be right with him. And out of that flows everything else that he has in store.

Healing balm for myself as I listen to my friend share and I'm sure healing balm for so many of you who are listening into this episode, I wanna thank you Kadiene so much for coming to share, so vulnerably 

And I want thank you for tuning into another episode of Constant Faithful, Secure. If there was anything encouraging for you or any nugget, leave a comment so we can know.

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Remember, He is constant. He is faithful, and so we can be secure.

God bless you.