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If you are here, there is a good chance that you are still waiting for Mr. Right to get down on one knee and pop “the question.” Maybe you have been together for years or maybe you just started dating. Maybe you don’t have a boyfriend at all. Thanksgiving through New Years Day is not always so kind to the girls waiting for a ring to be slipped on their finger. Why do I know this? Because I. Have. Been. There. Now instead of getting diamond rings, all my friends are growing adorable tiny humans, but that’s a whole different story…
I was with my ex for over four years and before we got engaged, I couldn’t even look at my Facebook timeline during the holidays. If I did, it was typing “Congratulations [insert champagne emoji]” 100X for every engagement post. All the girls holding their shiny new ring up in front of the Christmas tree or kissing their new fiancé under the local NYE ball drop. How romantic! And don’t get me wrong, I was genuinely excited and happy for every single one of them, but what about me?
Have you ever thought that to yourself? Wondered WHY the heck he hasn’t asked you to be his wife? Questioned if he even wanted to be with you forever… UGH. Girlfriend, I asked myself all of those things. I wanted to get married and be a wife deep down in my bones.
To give you a little backstory, my ex and I met in college. We dated all throughout senior year and moved into an apartment together a few months after my graduation (mistake number one). Then, after a year of renting, I convinced him to buy and renovate a small house. He was totally on board and excited about buying a home together, but I expressed the fear of signing our names together on the dotted line without AT LEAST being engaged. He agreed, so I thought we were on the same page. Key word, “thought.”
Once the renovation was complete, I was starting to get a bit impatient (me?! no way!) about getting engaged, and this is when it really stung to see every single person around me getting engaged. Especially people who had been together a fraction of the time we had.
We started having conversations that would often end up in heated disagreements, about life, values, money & marriage. We did not see eye to eye on the value and importance of marriage. He could not understand why it even mattered, let alone why it was holy. I basically gave the man an ultimatum. Either we got married, or I was leaving to find someone who wanted to be married to me. He didn’t want to lose me, but he didn’t want to marry me, so he proposed to me. Makes complete sense right? The engagement dragged on for a long time and I thank God every single day that we never got married.
Why am I telling you about my messy, messy past relationship?
I want you to know that deep down in your soul is a love for you that runs taller, wider, and higher than any love on this earth.
A love that doesn’t have to be convinced or given an ultimatum. A love that never fails. Never brags or boasts. A love that never ends. And frankly, we just can’t find that kind of love here on earth… but, my prayer for you is that you find a love as CLOSE to that as you possibly can. If it takes days, months, years, decades, I promise you, it is so, so worth it.
While you are in your season of waiting, land in contentment that there is already a plan bigger and better for your life than you can ever imagine. Maybe that includes Mr. Right and maybe it doesn’t. I am living proof that sometimes better things are ahead.
As soon as I let go of what God had been telling me to let go of, in walked my husband. It almost felt like God laughed at me (in the most loving way of course) and said, “Miranda, I placed it on your heart years ago to let go of this relationship & you just wouldn’t listen… And now that you have, I can finally give you the husband I have prepared for you.”
Let’s Make This Friendship Official 
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So, to the woman in waiting, you are not alone. When you see those sparkly engagement rings popping up on Facebook & Instagram, remember the ultimate promise that has ALREADY been made to you. Rest easy in the fact that you already belong. You already have a beautiful, all powerful Savior that will never leave your side. Enjoy the season that you are in because there is good and bad that comes with the others (just like this one)!
PS: I always get questions about my engagement ring! It's from Shane Co. & it's NOT the one my husband proposed to me with... I went back & fourth for a long time weather to invest in the ring I wanted to keep forever or start with something more affordable from Etsy, but I chose to make the investment & I'm so happy I did!
That said, here are some of my favorites that I had saved to Etsy that fall in a much more reasonable price range!
Photography: Alyssa DenHartigh Photography
