Sharon Adetola

Marriage brings two lives together in many ways—emotionally, spiritually, practically, and financially. Yet financial unity in marriage doesn't actually begin on the wedding day. It begins much earlier, in the habits, attitudes, and decisions you develop while you're still single. For a single Christian woman, preparing for marriage isn't only about becoming emotionally ready to love someone well or learning what kind of husband you hope to have. It can also mean learning how to steward what God has already placed in your hands. You don't need to be wealthy. You don't need to have everything figured out. And you certainly don't need a perfect financial record before you're "ready" for marriage. But developing healthy financial habits now can help you enter marriage with greater wisdom, honesty, and peace. Here are a few areas worth paying attention to while you're still single. 1. Practice Giving Before You Have "Extra" Generosity can...

Time passing is not the same thing as healing happening. Sometimes we assume that because something happened years ago, we must be over it by now. The relationship ended. The betrayal happened. The disappointment passed. We moved to a new city, started a new job, met new people, or simply entered a different season of life. But time can create distance from a wound without actually healing it. And this matters when you're preparing for marriage. Marriage has a way of bringing the parts of us that haven't been dealt with into closer view. The fears we thought we'd outgrown, the trust issues we thought were gone, the resentment we thought we'd released, and the beliefs we formed because of past experiences can all influence the way we love. That doesn't mean you need to be perfectly healed before you can be loved or married. It means it's worth becoming honest about what you're carrying. Healing isn't about becoming a woman who has never been hurt. It'...

Emotional readiness isn't the absence of feelings — it's the ability to carry them well. Here's what it tends to look like in a woman preparing for marriage. She can sit with discomfort without needing to fix it immediately. Marriage will bring seasons that can't be rushed to resolution. She knows her triggers and owns them. She doesn't expect a husband to read her mind or manage her moods for her. She can receive correction without spiraling. Feedback lands as information, not as rejection. She regulates instead of reacts. A raised voice or a hard conversation doesn't derail her entire week. None of this is about becoming unfeeling — it's about becoming steady. I walk through a full emotional-readiness framework in "Am I Ready for Marriage?" Get your copy here → If you want to grow in this alongside other women, find us at @temiandsharon — Prepared Bride Academy was built for exactly this kind of preparation.

There's a subtle but powerful shift that happens when a woman moves from "waiting" to "preparing." Waiting can feel passive — like life is on pause until something external changes. Preparing is active. It says: I trust God with the timing, and I'm stewarding the time I have. This shift changes how you pray — from "when, God?" to "what are you doing in me right now, God?" It changes how you spend your time — building instead of stalling. And it changes how you carry yourself — with peace instead of striving, because your hope isn't pinned to an arrival date; it's rooted in a Person who has never once been late. Preparing doesn't mean pretending you don't long for marriage. It means bringing that longing to God honestly, and letting Him use this season to shape you into the woman who will actually thrive in what's ahead. "My Marriage Vision Journal" is a practical companion for exactly this shift — from...

A prophetic journal isn't about predicting the future — it's about recording what God is saying, so your faith has something to stand on. Here are four things worth writing down. 1. Scriptures God highlights to you in this season. Verses that stood out unexpectedly — in a sermon, in your quiet time, in conversation. Write them down with the date. 2. Impressions and confirmations in prayer. If something feels like it's from God, record it, even if you're not sure yet. Time will help clarify what was Him. 3. Your own honest hopes for your future marriage.  Bring them before God and let Him shape, refine, or confirm them. 4. Moments of God's faithfulness in the waiting. Answered prayers, unexpected provision, timing that could only have been Him. These become anchors you can return to on harder days. This kind of guided, prophetic journaling is exactly what "My Marriage Vision Journal" was built for. Get your copy here → For community as you w...

 Faith isn't passive. It isn't simply waiting for something to happen — it's actively partnering with what God has already spoken, even before you can see it. That's what it means to activate your faith in singleness. Preparing early isn't anxious striving. It's the opposite — it's trusting God enough to steward this season well, rather than treating it as empty time to simply survive until marriage arrives. A woman who prepares early isn't rushing marriage into existence; she's stewarding the here and now so that whenever it comes, she's ready to receive it with both hands. This looks like: growing in character now, not waiting until there's someone to practice patience on. Healing wounds now, rather than carrying them unexamined into a future relationship. Praying and journaling now, so your faith has a record to stand on later. Faith activated in singleness isn't wasted. It becomes the foundation everything else is built on. ...

 There's something powerful about praying Scripture over your future — it roots your hope in God's Word rather than your own imagination. Here are seven verses worth returning to as you pray over your future marriage and household. Joshua 24:15 — "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 — on the strength of two joined together, and a cord of three strands. Proverbs 3:5-6 — trusting the Lord to direct your path, including this one. Psalm 127:1 — "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain." Ephesians 5:25 — Christ's sacrificial, self-giving love as the pattern for marriage. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 — love that is patient, kind, and endures. Malachi 2:15 — the call to seek godly offspring, guarding the spirit of the home. Praying these isn't a formula for guaranteeing an outcome — it's a discipline of aligning your heart with God's, so that whatever He builds, it's built on Him. ...

 A marriage vision journal isn't a wish list. It's a spiritual practice — a place where you bring your desires to God, ask Him to shape them, and record what He's saying to you in this season. Here's how to start one. Step 1: Begin with prayer, not a pen. Before you write anything, ask God what He wants to show you about this season and what's ahead. Let the journal be a response to Him, not just a projection of your own hopes. Step 2: Write down what God has already spoken. Any scripture that's stood out, any impression in prayer, any confirmation you've sensed — record it. These become markers you can look back on later. Step 3: Record your own heart honestly. Your hopes, your fears, your questions. A vision journal isn't performance for God; He already knows. It's a place to be fully honest before Him. Step 4: Revisit it, don't just fill it. A vision journal only works if you return to it — to pray back over what you wrote, to noti...

 One of the most powerful things a single woman can do isn't just waiting — it's praying. Not vague, prayers, but intentional ones. Here's a simple framework for praying for your future husband, even now, before you've met him. Pray for his relationship with God first. Not his relationship with you first — his relationship with the Lord. A man who is truly walking with God will know how to lead, how to serve, and how to love, because he's learning it from the source. Pray for his character, not just his qualities. It's easy to pray for tall, kind, ambitious. Pray deeper: integrity when no one's watching, humility under correction, patience under pressure. Pray for his healing. Whatever he walked through before he met you — disappointment, rejection, past mistakes — pray that God does the healing work in him now, so he doesn't bring an unhealed version of himself into your marriage. Pray for your own readiness too. Praying for a future husband...

                      Every season carries blindspots—things we can't quite see about ourselves until someone or something holds up a mirror. Sometimes we discover them through a difficult conversation. Sometimes through disappointment. Sometimes through prayer. And sometimes God allows a quiet season to expose things we would have been too distracted to notice otherwise. Singleness can be one of those seasons. It can be a season of freedom, growth, discovery, friendship, service, and deepening your relationship with God. But it can also be a season where certain patterns become easier to hide because you don't yet have the daily pressures and responsibilities that come with building a life with another person. Marriage won't automatically expose every blindspot. But it can certainly make some of them more visible. That's why preparing for marriage shouldn't only mean asking, "What kind of husband am I praying for?" It can also mean...

 Before any woman says "I do," there's a quieter question worth asking first: Am I saying yes from wholeness, or from waiting? Here are four questions I encourage every woman I mentor to sit with, prayerfully, before marriage — not after. 1. Have I actually healed, or have I just moved on? Time passing isn't the same as healing happening. Old wounds that go unaddressed don't disappear in marriage — they usually just find a new person to test them on. 2. Do I know what I actually believe about submission, leadership, and partnership — or am I borrowing someone else's definition? These words get thrown around loosely. Know, from Scripture and from prayer, what you actually believe a Christ-centered marriage looks like, before you're navigating it in real time. 3. Can I see this person's character clearly, or am I explaining away what I see? Discernment gets clouded by hope. Ask God for eyes to see clearly, not eyes that only see what you want t...

So many of us grew up dreaming about the wedding day — the dress, the flowers, the moment at the altar. But a wedding lasts a day. A marriage lasts a lifetime. And I have found that the women who thrive in marriage are the ones who quietly started preparing for the life , long before they ever picked out an invitation. Here are three signs you're doing exactly that. 1. You care more about character than chemistry. Attraction matters, but it fades in and out with seasons and circumstances. A woman preparing for a life asks deeper questions: Does this person's character hold up under pressure? Do they keep their word? How do they treat people who can't do anything for them? 2. You're building now, not waiting to start later. You're growing spiritually, financially, emotionally — not pausing your life until "he" arrives. Marriage was designed to multiply what's already in motion, not resurrect what's been sitting still. If God brings someone tom...

I want to say something to you before we go any further: singleness is not a waiting room. It is a preparation room. And if you have ever felt a quiet shifting in your spirit — a restlessness that isn't anxiety but readiness — that is not your imagination. That may be the Holy Spirit at work. Walking with single women through Prepared Bride Academy, I have watched this happen again and again. God does not wait until the wedding day to start preparing a woman for marriage. He starts long before there's a man in the picture, because the work He wants to do is in you , not in your circumstances. Here are five signs I have come to recognize — in my own life and in the lives of the women I mentor — that the Holy Spirit is preparing your heart for marriage. 1. You're becoming more interested in who you're becoming than in who you're meeting There's a shift that happens. The questions change from "when will he come" to "who is God making me into while I...