{"id":10376,"date":"2012-10-15T06:35:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T11:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=10376"},"modified":"2012-10-15T06:35:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T11:35:34","slug":"praying-for-my-future-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2012\/20121015-10376.htm","title":{"rendered":"Praying for my future husband"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Dear Future Husband,<\/p>\n

I turned 16 today, and I know it may seem weird writing this to you now, but this letter is sort of my way of making a promise to you in writing…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So begins the fictional Christy Miller’s first letter to her future husband.<\/p>\n

Reading this in Island Dreamer<\/i> at eleven, I was more than a little impressed at the romantic idea of communicating with the nebulous future husband. <\/p>\n

I began writing my own letters–and started praying for “my future husband”. The letters tapered off and were mostly forgotten–the prayers have continued.<\/p>\n

I was in my mid-teens<\/strong> when our youth pastor got married. People made a big deal about how his wife had prayed for him (that is, for her future husband) for eight years before they got married.<\/p>\n

She was considered *the* example of a woman who’d waited long, who’d waited prayerfully.<\/p>\n

I loved it–and thought I could maybe handle eight years of praying.<\/p>\n

It’s been 16 years<\/strong> since that first letter. Sixteen years since the first prayer.<\/p>\n

I have waited, sometimes patiently, often very impatiently. <\/p>\n

I have fretted and stewed, and sometimes I have experienced the sweet peace that comes with trusting God.<\/p>\n

I am not a paragon of patient waiting. It has been a difficult sixteen years. My heart has not always been pure, my eyes not always focused on Christ. Even my prayers have not always been right. Making marriage an idol, I have bargained with God for a husband. I have given God deadlines, ultimatums. I have sinfully demanded a spouse.<\/p>\n

More often than I like to admit, my prayers have been demands for a husband. But God resisted my bargaining, my demands, my desperate attempts to be content enough to earn myself a husband. In His grace, God worked in my heart to overthrow my idol of marriage and to enthrone Christ as my supreme treasure.<\/p>\n

As I’ve grown in my walk<\/strong> with Christ, my prayers for my future husband have changed. <\/p>\n

I began praying that he would seek God, that God would direct his paths, that God would lead the two of us together at just the right time.<\/p>\n

I started praying for myself, that the God who knows my future husband intimately would make me into just the right woman to be his helpmate. <\/p>\n

In the last week<\/strong>, my prayers have changed again.<\/p>\n

Now I pray for my future husband by name.
\n
\nI pray for my beloved Daniel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve prayed sixteen years for my future husband, but now, in five short months (unbearably long), I will drop the “future” and he will be simply “my husband”.<\/p>\n

Will you join me in praying, for my future husband and for myself? Now that his name is known, will you pray for Daniel and I as we begin our life together?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Dear Future Husband, I turned 16 today, and I know it may seem weird writing this to you now, but this letter is sort of my way of making a promise to you in writing… So begins the fictional Christy Miller’s first letter to her future husband. Reading this in Island Dreamer at eleven, I … Read more Praying for my future husband<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10376"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}