The Boy You Raised, The Man Before You

(If you’re new to this series, you can read the rest here: What Your Son Will Remember → and On Bringing Up Young Sons: The Boy Right In Front Of You → and Raising Teens: Before Your Son Asks You To→)

I can tell you the exact moment I began praying for our oldest son’s someday bride.

Not the month. Not even the year. But the moment itself is still clear in my mind, as though it settled there and never quite left.

“I want the kind of wife who would be able to pull an arrow out of my back,” he said. “That kind of woman.”

He was only eleven or twelve at the time, and I remember feeling caught off guard — not so much by the strangeness of the image, though there was that, too — but by what seemed to be underneath it. There were questions I could have asked him. Why an arrow? Why would it be in your back? And, honestly, How do you come up with something like that?? But I didn’t ask.

Because, somehow, I understood.

He wasn’t talking about danger so much as he was describing a woman. Someone who stays close when things get hard. Who doesn’t turn away at the first sign of pain, but steps in with care and faithfulness. Someone who would love him not only in the easy moments, but in the ones that cost something.

And so, with all my heart, I began to pray.

I prayed for a woman who would be kind and wise, soft in heart and strong in spirit. One who would listen carefully to his deepest thoughts, laugh with him freely, and help build the kind of friendship that deepens rather than fades. One who would learn with him what it means to forgive and be forgiven, to respect and to cherish. And as much as I hoped she would love our son deeply, I prayed that she would love Christ even more.

And yes, I prayed — half smiling to myself — that she would be able to pull an arrow out of his back. While hoping she would never have to.

There were seasons when those prayers felt steady and uncomplicated, simply a part of loving him well from a distance. And there were other seasons when they felt harder, when time passed and nothing seemed to be changing, and I wondered — not whether God was good, or even whether He heard — but whether I would see particular prayers answered in the way I had imagined.

It was during one of those seasons that I found myself asking for something more specific than I had before. “Lord, help him find his wife before he turns thirty.”

Even as I wrote it down, it felt like a bold request. He was already twenty-nine, and there was no one in his life at the time. It was the kind of prayer that, once spoken, leaves you aware of how little control you actually have, and how much you are entrusting to God.

Not long after that, he flew back home for a friend’s wedding — just a brief trip, the kind you almost question for its practicality. It was held out in the country, on the property of longtime friends, the kind of gathering where history and relationships are woven together over years.

And there, among familiar faces, was a young woman we had known before. She and our son were reintroduced — and what began as a casual conversation simply did not end. They stood talking for hours near the dance floor while the wedding party carried on around them. At some point, without anyone saying a word, the people nearby began to give them space. As though everyone could see what was happening, even before they could.

What I remember most is not the sequence of events, remarkable as they were. It is the sense of recognition that came with them. Not dramatic or overwhelming, but certain and unmistakable: the awareness that God had been at work long before that evening. That the prayers whispered over years had not been set aside or forgotten, but had been gathered into something I could not yet know.

It felt less like a sudden triumph and more like an exhale. As though something I had been holding, often without realizing it, had been gently placed back into God’s hands, where it had been all along.

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That was several years ago now. Britain and Amy have built a life together, and I have had a front row seat.

I see it most clearly now when I watch him with his own family.

He reaches for his wife’s hand the way he used to reach for mine when he was small — automatically, without thinking about it. He plans camping trips and off-roading adventures with the same restless energy that used to wake him at five-thirty every morning, ready before the rest of the house had opened its eyes. “What are we doing today, Mama??” Exhausting, back then. Delightful, in retrospect.

His wife texted me recently to report that their toddler daughter has inherited his gift for early mornings. I laughed, and we agreed it was well-deserved.

And watching him now with his little girls — so tender with them, so present — I find myself thinking: I know where that came from. I watched it being formed, in a thousand unremarkable moments, long before either of us knew what it was becoming.

This is one of the gifts of the adult sons season that no one quite prepares you for. You spent years investing in someone you could only partially see. And then one day the picture comes into focus — and what you find there is not a stranger. It is someone you recognize. Someone shaped, in part, by every prayer whispered and every ordinary day faithfully lived.

That is not a small thing.

And it is worth delighting in, fully and without apology.

Not every mother reading this is in this season yet.

If you are praying for a son who is grown or nearly so, whispering prayers over a future you cannot shape or predict, I want you to know that those prayers are not for nothing. They are not merely hopeful words offered with a shrug. They are a participation in what God is already doing. He knows the love our sons will need. And He is faithful to what we entrust to Him.

So keep praying. Pray specifically and boldly and without apology. Write it down if you need to. Pray on the hard days when nothing seems to be changing, and on the quiet days when you simply want good things for him.

Because our Heavenly Father cares about the longings of a mother’s heart, and you can trust Him to be at work, even when it’s not yet visible.

He is good, always good.

And He hears your prayers, my friend.

I pray that you will find the courage to keep praying — not with a clenched fist, but with an open hand. That the waiting will not wear you down but deepen your trust in the One who sees your son more clearly than you ever could.

May you know that your prayers are not disappearing into silence. They are being held, and gathered, and answered in ways you cannot yet see — on a timeline that is better than your own.

And I ask this for you from the God who wastes nothing — that He would give you eyes to delight in your son today, exactly as he is, even as you trust Him with everything your son is still becoming.

In His grace,

Lisa Jacobson

P.S. Thank you for joining me for this series. It has been a joy to write — because these are not just stories about my sons. They are, I hope, something you can carry into your own. I am deeply grateful you were here for it.

P.P.S. If you want to go deeper, my husband Matt and I wrote 100 Ways to Love Your Son with exactly this in mind — practical, everyday ways to build the kind of relationship that lasts. You can find it here.