When God Doesn't Build the Life I Imagined

For most of my life, I carried a picture in my heart of what motherhood would look like.

I imagined staying home, moving slowly through the days with my children, being fully present, never feeling rushed by work, money, or schedules. It felt holy. It felt right.

It felt like the dream God surely had for me.

But lately, I’ve realized something humbling.

God didn’t build my life around that dream.

He didn’t place me with a man who expected me to stay home while everything else magically fell into place. He didn’t remove the need for contribution, effort, structure, and responsibility. He didn’t make provision without participation.

Instead, God gave me David.

And David expects me to work. Not because he doesn’t value me at home, but because he believes in making our life real, not imagined. He understands that dreams don’t sustain our family, obedience and effort do.

For a long time, especially recently, I quietly hoped that one day things would “line up” and I’d be able to stay home the way I pictured. That the finances would change. That opportunities would appear. That circumstances would bend toward my preference.

But they didn’t.

And that’s when I started to see it differently.

If God wanted that life for me, the doors would already be open. The provision would already exist. The structure would already support it. God is not confusing. He is not teasing us with impossible callings.

He aligns purpose with reality.

What I was holding onto wasn’t faith, it was fantasy.

A gentle, beautiful fantasy but still something rooted more in longing than obedience.

The truth is, God isn’t asking me to wait for the life I want.

He’s asking me to steward the life I have.

He’s asking me to show my children what it looks like to participate in provision, to build something instead of wishing for it, to live inside reality with courage and gratitude.

My expectations of staying home with my kids are sweet, but sweetness alone doesn’t make a calling. Fruit does. Stability does. Movement does. Responsibility does.

God didn’t lead me into a life where I disappear into comfort.

He led me into a life where I show up.

Where I work.

Where I contribute.

Where I grow.

Where I model faith that moves its feet.

And strangely enough, there’s freedom in that.

Because I’m no longer waiting for someday.

I’m no longer disappointed by what isn’t happening.

I’m learning to be excited about what is happening.

My children don’t need a mother who lives in imagined peace.

They need a mother who lives in real courage.

God didn’t deny my dream, He is reshaping it.

Not into what feels easiest, but into what builds us.

And I’m finally learning that obedience often looks less like a fairytale…

and more like waking up and walking forward anyway.