Because she prayed. Prolific author and speaker Tricia Goyer might have missed the purpose God had planned for her. One where she would influence hundreds of thousands through the more than 100 books she has written, blogs she’s posted and podcasts she’s hosted. One where she would raise (and homeschool!) ten children, including seven through adoption. One where the message of the Gospel is now being shared by three of those children who serve as missionaries in Europe. One where young moms found hope in crisis.

Sidetracked by an unplanned pregnancy as a teen, Tricia’s life of service to the Lord almost never got off the ground. But because she prayed … everything changed. It took coming to the end of herself to draw her to the God who loved her. An unwed mother at 17, Tricia recommitted her life to Christ, influenced in part by the love of the women at her church who embraced her rather than cast her out in shame.

The day Tricia brought her son home from the hospital, John, the son of her pastor, visited her with a teddy bear. Recently back from service in the U.S. Marine Corps, he remembered Tricia from their younger days. In fact, it was his father who had baptized Tricia’s mother and grandmother alongside John’s aunt when they were children.

The two married nine months later. John was 23, Tricia just 18. Since her rededication to God, she had been praying for a godly man who would love her and want to raise a family that included a son that wasn’t his. She shares her story, along with how and what she prayed, in the books, Praying for Your Future Husband: Preparing Your Heart for His and its companion, Before You Meet Your Future Husband. Tricia recounts that she made all the mistakes, in contrast to co-author Robin Jones Gunn, who had stayed pure until her marriage. “But no matter what your story, God can use it,” Tricia said. The books advise young women to pray their future husbands will love God, pray for his heart, pray for contentment and that he’ll be loyal and faithful. As they are praying for the future “him,” they also are preparing their own hearts, she added.

Marriage champions might consider how they could use these books to lead the young women in their circle to prepare for their future partner and marriage. Despite being published in 2011, Tricia reported that people still tell her at every conference and speaking engagement how valuable the books have been. She’s received wedding invitations and letters describing how they have changed people’s lives and futures. Often, she’s told the reader realized what they were praying for was not matching the “Mr. Wrong” they were dating. Once their eyes were opened, they were able to free themselves to be ready to meet the man God had for them.

Before You Meet Your Future Husband also helps young women consider how God has designed them with a purpose. “You have to know where you are going so you can walk alongside your husband in a way that benefits the kingdom,” Tricia said.

Tricia and John have lived that process of walking together in obedience to Christ throughout their 35-year marriage. When John felt called to children’s ministry, Tricia, and eventually the whole family, joined him in service. When Tricia felt called to help start a crisis pregnancy center, John backed her every step of the way. Whether it has been following the James 1 mission of providing a home for the orphan or widow (Tricia’s elderly grandmother, now 95, has lived with the family for 30 years), the Goyers make their decisions in agreement together.

Nowhere has John been more supportive of Tricia’s dreams than in her writing career, which she describes as a team effort. She first thought about writing when she was chatting in the church nursery with another young mom wrangling a toddler. The woman said she was working on a novel, and Tricia felt “a light in my heart. I knew this is what I was created for.” Not knowing where to start, Tricia went to the library to check out books on how to be a writer. She learned that Multnomah sponsored an annual Christian Writer’s Conference and saved money she made providing in-home childcare for a year to be able to attend. “I went 14 years in a row!” she said, a feat made possible by John sacrificially taking off work to watch their growing family.

“He’s always been so encouraging,” she said. Now when the Goyers go to conferences, it’s a family affair. John drives the trailer and unpacks the merchandise. With more than 100 fiction and non-fiction books published for everyone from children and teens to parents, the booth is kitted out like a bookstore. “He’s so proud. People will come up to the booth and wait to talk to him about my books, even when I am standing right there!” Tricia said.

She describes her core audience as a conservative Christian family who loves clean content and non-fiction parenting resources. She’s well known for her Amish fiction, having written the Big Sky and Seven Brides for Seven Bachelors series. Tricia noted her favorite fiction book she’s written, From Dust and Ashes, is based on the true story of the WWII liberation of an Austrian concentration camp inspired by a visit to the site in 2000. As part of her research, Tricia corresponded with the 23 American servicemen still alive at the time – and even attended four of their reunions. She noted the mural at the end of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. that depicts the scene features the portraits of three of the four veterans she interviewed.

Tricia’s a USA-Today Best-selling Author and has won two Carol Awards and a Retailer’s Best Award. She also was an ECPA Gold Medallion Nominee, a Christy Award Nominee and won Writer of the Year from the Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference.

God has led her to publish in both non-fiction and fiction genres. Her first non-fiction book, Teen Mom: You’re Stronger Than You Think, filled a void of parenting resources for the very young parent. Tricia had been leading a teen MOPs group at the crisis pregnancy center – one of the first in the country for that audience, a cause near and dear to her heart. She went to the MOPs convention in 2000 and showed the leaders the photo album of her MOPs group to personalize the need. In 2001 she got a contract from Zondervan to write her teen mom book at the same time she signed a contract with Moody Publishing to write a novel.

Tricia treasures the friendships she’s made with people at the Christian writer’s conference – some of whom she’s known for more than 30 years. In fact, an editor she met when she was pregnant with third child, Nathan, recently published a book she and that son co-wrote.

Tricia has spoken at MomCon, Raising Generations and Teach Them Diligently conferences, hosts The Tricia Goyer Show and co-hosts the Daily Bible Podcast. The Tricia Goyer Show helps people learn how to walk out those moments in life where the road forks – whether it’s being called to adoption, a cross country move, inviting an elderly relative to move in or blessing a child’s call to be a missionary halfway across the world. Podcast links and blogs can be found on her website, https://triciagoyer.com/.

One blog post explains why and how to share sensitive subjects with family. Content comes from her life’s experience of teen pregnancy and healing from abortion. John jokes the Goyers “Don’t have any skeletons in the closet because they are all out on the front lawn.”

Tricia also shares how God aligned her and John’s hearts in agreement to adopt from foster care. She was so moved by the book Kisses from Katie that she asked a group of women to pray with her that John’s heart would be open to the idea. Little did she know that same day John had been having lunch with a friend who presented the need to him. Soon after, the family welcomed the first two of six children they adopted from foster care.

God confirmed their call the day they were bringing the children home. Tricia and John were reading the Bible and praying together — a consistent habit they had established from the beginning of their marriage. The passage of the morning just so happened to be James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” That the specific verse “just so happened” to appear in their reading of the day reassured the couple. They were stepping out – but stepping out together – following God’s lead.

John and Tricia set priorities from the beginning to start their young marriage on a firm foundation. They’ve always maintained a family dinner hour with no phones or screens – even if it meant limiting the number of activities their children could be involved in. She explains her marriage building habits in her book, Walk it Out.

The Goyers enjoy reading books out loud together. Decision making is handled jointly. The kids were never allowed to divide and conquer. Tricia noted that overcoming hardships has made their family stronger. “The mess of our past can be healed and become a solution that benefits other people,” she said.

Tricia published some of these strategic practices in a marriage book in the early 2000s that has since gone out of print. She’s considering pulling from her extensive volume of marriage-related blog topics she’s written to develop a more current title.

Always eager to share what she’s learned, Tricia’s also developing new courses in 2025 to help aspiring writers find their voices and get started on their books.

Anything is possible through the power of prayer.