I don’t know about you but I have thought about my future husband ever since I was a little girl. My Sunday school teachers used to tell me that I should guard my heart and wait for Mr. Right. However, society told me to hook up with the first guy that told me I was pretty. I was lost. While I wanted to listen to my five year old self, I also wanted a boyfriend to do cute couple things with. It sucked even more because I had friends and family members who told me I would be perfect for any guy who came my way. So where were all those guys?
It took me a long time but I realized I was just looking for more. I didn’t want a “hit it and quit it” kind of guy; I didn’t want society’s version of a relationship where people broke up every five minutes and then got back together again. I wanted to be sure that the guys I dated were what I was looking for; what God wanted me to look for. Thus, most of my life I have spent searching for guys who met God’s standards of what a true man was. So you would think going to a Christian college I would be surrounded by those kinds of men. And I was right. Unfortunately I realized this week that I have been so busy trying to figure out what kind of man my future husband resembled, that I lost sight of the kind of woman I should be striving to be. I focused so much on the qualities I looked for in guys that I forgot the kind of qualities God desired in me.
Too often I think as Christian women we get caught up in finding a guy who we can check things off of our list. You know the list I am talking about: a devout Christian, goes to church, is in an accountability group, reads his bible, treats his mother right, etc. While all those qualities are amazing, what are you doing? Are you spending time with God daily? Do you thank Him for sunny days where life is good and when you have four papers due tomorrow that you haven’t even started on? Are you the kind of woman that those men are looking for?
It’s hard to say yes to all of those questions; even some of them. I’ll admit I want a guy who meets all the qualities above. But how can I expect that out of a guy if I am not working on those same characteristics? You see ladies, it works both ways. We too have to put God before all else. We too have to be spending time with God daily. We too have to have people to keep us accountable with our faith.
Now let me clarify something. We should not be doing these things in order to find us a husband. This should be something we want to do in order to please God. However, our expectations of the kind of men we want to date should be the same kind of qualities we expect ourselves to live up to. Our God is great and mighty and powerful and He has a plan for each and every one of us beautiful, empowering women. But we must be so in love with Him and His plan for us that we have to trust the kind of man he brings into our lives. I don’t know what God has in store for me, but I hope that when I meet that special someone that God has designed for me, that guy will see me drenched in Proverbs 31.
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who loves the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)
