Faith Based Series: Speaking Terms - When the Calling I Wanted Was to be a Wife - God Is Asking Me Who I Am Without It.

Hampton Law Firm ⚖️
May 19
6 min read

This is something I’ve truly never realized or admitted, even to myself. However, lots of faith based self reflection led me to discover a deeper part of my truth.

Sometimes the hardest prayer is not asking God for what you want, but trusting Him when the calling you wanted most is not the season He allowed. I believed wifehood was part of who I was called to be — not because I was weak, not because I needed saving, but because I believed in covenant, family, faithfulness, and building a life rooted in God. And now, in the grief of surrendering what I thought my life would look like, I am learning that Jesus is not asking me to stop honoring the dream. He is asking me to stop making the dream the foundation of my worth. I may not understand this season, but I still believe He sees me in it. And maybe faith begins again right here — not when I have the answers, but when I am honest enough to bring Him the ache.

There is a difference between believing in Jesus and being on speaking terms with Him. I have believed in Him for as long as I can remember, but belief and closeness are not always the same thing. Lately, I have been thinking about that phrase in a way that feels personal, painful, and honest. I do not want a faith that only knows how to say the right words in public. I want a faith that is close enough to survive the questions I am almost afraid to ask.

The question I keep coming back to is this: how do I reconcile my faith with the grief of realizing that the one dream I wanted most may not be the life God has for me right now? I am not talking about a career goal, a business goal, or a public achievement. I have had those dreams too, and I have worked hard for them. But at the deepest part of my heart, the dream I carried most tenderly was the dream of being a wife.

That may surprise some people because I do not fit the stereotype of a woman who “needs” to be taken care of. I am 38 years old. I am a mother of three. I own a law firm. I work as a public felony defender. I provide. I problem-solve. I carry responsibilities that most people never see. I have never been a woman waiting around for someone else to build my life for me.

But being independent does not mean I never wanted covenant. Being successful does not mean I never wanted partnership. Being able to provide does not mean I never wanted to be cherished, protected, chosen, and held together inside a marriage rooted in faith. I can be strong and still long for the sacredness of being a wife. I can be capable and still grieve the loss of the life I thought I was building.

For me, wife was never a small word. It was not about being silent, submissive in some shallow or distorted way, or less than the person God made me to be. It was about becoming part of something holy. It was about two people choosing covenant over convenience, forgiveness over pride, and faithfulness over whatever the world says is easier. It was about building a home where love had responsibility attached to it.

Christianity teaches that marriage is not merely a social arrangement or a legal label. At its best, marriage is supposed to reflect covenant, sacrifice, mercy, and steadfast love. That is why the loss of it, or the realization that what you thought you had may not have been what you believed in, can feel spiritually disorienting. It is not just heartbreak. It is a fracture in the story you told yourself about who you were becoming before God.

I think that is why this season has hurt me so deeply. I have endured public embarrassment, private devastation, and circumstances I never imagined would become part of my story. But the deepest pain is not simply that life became hard. The deepest pain is that I thought I was living inside a calling, or at least moving toward one, and now I am standing in the aftermath asking whether I misunderstood everything.

I have asked myself whether I failed as a wife. I have asked whether I failed as a Christian woman. I have asked whether wanting marriage so much made me blind to things I should have seen. I have asked whether God is disappointed in me, or whether I somehow stepped outside the life He meant for me. Those are not easy questions to write down, but they are the real ones.

There is a particular kind of shame that comes when the dream you wanted most is also a dream that faith taught you was good. If I had only wanted money, status, attention, or applause, maybe I could dismiss the grief more easily. But I wanted a home. I wanted a husband. I wanted to be a wife in a way that honored God, loved my children, and reflected commitment. I wanted something that I still believe is good.

So now I am trying to learn the difference between grieving a good dream and believing that God has abandoned me. Those are not the same thing. A broken marriage, a lost marriage, or a painful separation does not mean Jesus is finished with a woman. It does not mean her identity is erased. It does not mean she is less loved, less called, or less capable of being restored.

Still, knowing that in my head does not immediately heal the part of me that feels like I failed. That is where I think faith has to become more than phrases we repeat. I do not need a shallow answer right now. I do not need someone to tell me everything happens for a reason in a way that dismisses the pain. I need a relationship with Jesus honest enough to let me say, I am devastated. I wanted to be a wife. I thought that was who I was meant to be. I do not know who I am without that dream.

Maybe being on speaking terms with Jesus begins exactly there. Maybe it begins with the truth I would rather hide. Maybe it begins with admitting that I have not always known how to bring this part of myself to Him because I felt embarrassed, confused, and spiritually inadequate. Maybe prayer is not always polished. Maybe sometimes prayer is a woman sitting in the wreckage of what she wanted most, asking God whether He still sees her.

I believe He does. I may not always feel it, but I believe Jesus sees the woman who wanted marriage for the right reasons. He sees the woman who worked, provided, mothered, built, fought, forgave, hoped, and tried. He sees the woman who is tired of being strong but does not know how to be anything else. He sees the woman who is asking whether her life still has meaning if she is not standing beside a husband.

And maybe the answer is not that I was never meant to be a wife. Maybe the answer is that being a wife was never supposed to be the only place where I found my worth. That is hard for me, because I wanted that role so much. I still honor it. I still believe marriage matters. I still believe being a wife is sacred. But I am trying to understand that even sacred dreams cannot become the foundation of my identity more than Jesus Himself.

That does not make the grief disappear. It does not make me suddenly grateful for the pain. It does not mean I am pretending that everything is fine, because I am not. It simply means I am trying to let Jesus into the part of my heart that feels like it lost the one thing it wanted most. I am trying to stop treating Him like someone I only update from a distance and start speaking to Him like someone who can handle the whole truth.

So this is where I am in my faith: not perfectly healed, not perfectly certain, but reaching. I am reaching for a relationship with Jesus that is deeper than “speaking terms.” I am asking Him to help me understand who I am if I am not a wife right now. I am asking Him to show me how to honor the dream without worshiping the dream. I am asking Him to remind me that a woman can grieve marriage and still be held by God, that she can feel like she failed and still be loved, and that even when the life she wanted most falls apart, Jesus can still meet her there and begin again.

Written By: Judith L. Hampton, Attorney at Law, Hampton Law Firm.