Growing up in church, we were taught to pray for our future spouse. As an adult, I still see the practice as pertinent, just not well executed. We, as girls, were encouraged to dream, make wish lists of what we hoped for in a mate, and then pray for that man to come into our lives—as if God was Santa and we were asking for our most coveted Christmas wish.
I knew that my parents had been praying for my future husband from nearly the moment I was born. It was an abstract concept in my adolescent mind, and I was unclear for what exactly they were praying. That he would be a Christian? A good husband? A provider, leader, rich? I wasn’t sure.
My friends and I were deemed the BCGs (Boy Crazy Girls) before we were old enough to drive. I had imagined my life with more than several dozen boys by the age of ten—I even have the diary to prove it. Some potential mates seemingly wouldn’t work out because, at the time, I felt that I couldn’t marry a boy with blonde hair—I was a brunette and didn’t think that was an appropriate match. As an adult, the thought makes me laugh.
Unsurprisingly to those who know me, I wasn’t like most other girls. My list was long and very detailed, but I was confident that God would provide the exact man of my dreams. At 18 I knew, for some deluded reason, that his name would be Tim and, since I knew no Tims, I was sure to meet him when I went away to college.
My hunt for God’s man did a good job of keeping me out of trouble — maybe that was the point — but it also caused me a lot of heartaches. I became obsessed with finding “the one” that God had created especially for me. I was sure that there was a man who would measure up to my laundry list of must-haves and would-likes. I knew that God had called me to ministry, and I wanted to work with adolescents, so I started college as a Youth Ministry major assuming that I would meet my perfect match there.
The church had inadvertently given me the same unrealistic expectations of marriage that every fairy tale had given me : the handsome prince will show up, sweep you off your feet, and ride off with you into the sunset.
During my first college convocation, I sat in a room filled with thousands of other people. My mind was consumed by the thought, Could my future husband be sitting in this same room? Spoiler alert, he was — but we’ll get to that later. You see, I had been taught/programmed/trained to believe that, because I had the desire to be married, the Lord would provide a godly husband for me. With the best of intentions, I had been misguided into believing that, if I put my well-thought-out wish list together and obsessively prayed over it, the Lord would check every box off my list and my future husband would complete me.
You see, even though I did meet someone at school and eventually married that godly man, I had unrealistic expectations of his role in my life. Was it not his job to meet all my spiritual, emotional, and financial needs? The hard truth is: No. I had the grandiose idea that, once I met my future husband, he would fit perfectly into the box that God had revealed to me. We would ride off into the sunset and live a spiritual fairy-tale life together.
No one prepared me for the possibility that he might not meet every criterion on my 50-item-long list, that his name would be one letter off (Tom, not Tim), that he might have his own set of misguided expectations, or that we would each bring different backgrounds and our own family to the marriage.
No one had prepared me for how to navigate dividing holidays between families or the identity crisis that came with moving to a new state with a new last name and not knowing anyone other than my spouse and my new family. No one had ever prepared me for the possibility that I might not get married. What if my calling in life had been singleness?
The church had devoted so much time to helping me dream up and pray for a fairy tale that they forgot to teach me how to love my Creator, a real husband, or my role as an actual wife. Marriage was nothing like what I had been promised on youth retreats and in girls’ Sunday school classes.
It was his job to make sure that I was happy and spiritually fit. Right? I spent the first year of my marriage questioning everything that I had grown up learning about praying for my spouse. Had I done it wrong? Maybe I just gotten the wrong guy. Now what?
I’ve learned the hard way that God doesn’t create husbands and wives to complete each other — it is through Christ that we are made complete!
I remember the day when I finally took matters into my own hands, deciding that enough was enough. I would get back to praying — only now I would pray for the husband that I had. I purchased The Power of the Praying Wife Devotional by Stormie Omartian (if I’ve been invited to your wedding, you’ve likely received this as a gift from me).
I cracked it open on that first day and promptly read the first devotional, satisfied that I was going to “fix” him through prayer. I was instead surprised to find that the first prayer was for me. I was confused. As the days went on alternating between a prayer for myself, a prayer for him, and a prayer for our marriage, I began to see my own heart change.
I realized that my own expectations had to give. My own heart had to soften. As I began to study Scripture for myself, I realized that, while growing up, many of the well-intended lessons I had been taught at church about my future spouse had been convoluted. I had to unlearn and relearn what his role in my life was meant to be. I had to move Christ back into His rightful place and refrain from holding my husband to a standard that he could never meet.
The church had inadvertently given me the same unrealistic expectations of marriage that every fairy tale had given me : the handsome prince will show up, sweep you off your feet, and ride off with you into the sunset. The reality is that I am an imperfect person who sought out an imperfect person and made a commitment to spend a lifetime with him. Marriage was and still is the most difficult thing that I have ever done. It challenges me in ways I never expected and has grown me in just as many ways.
I’m not the same woman that I was when I said my vows at 22. As a sweet friend pointed out recently, marriage is a beautiful, though difficult, path towards sanctification. It has forced me to face my inner ugly and lay it at the feet of my Savior. It has allowed me to run to Christ when there’s nowhere else to turn.
I’ve learned the hard way that God doesn’t create husbands and wives to complete each other — it is through Christ that we are made complete! (Col. 2:10) However, we can have complementary and complimentary attributes. We are called to love each other (Eph. 5:25, John 12), respect each other (Eph. 5:33), encourage each other in faith (1 Thess. 5:11; Heb. 10:24–25), help each other (Eccl. 4:9–12), and to hold each other accountable and pray for each other (James 5:15–16).
If you’re looking for someone to make you happy or complete you, you’re setting that person up to fail you and your relationship up for failure. Take steps now to establish those realistic expectations.
It is our job as mature women of faith to teach the younger generations the truth of the Scriptures and prepare them for the realities, not the fantasies, of what they will face. We have to grow up and the truth can be difficult to hear, that is why Scripture reminds us to share that truth in love (Eph. 4:15).
If you’re reading this waiting for that special someone, please don’t be discouraged by my words. Marriage is a beautiful construct from the Lord and teaches us so many beautiful things about His love for us. Search for a spouse with open eyes and realistic expectations about the role a spouse is meant to play in your life. If you’re looking for someone to make you happy or complete you, you’re setting that person up to fail you and your relationship up for failure. Take steps now to establish those realistic expectations for yourself and for a potential marriage.
Use your singleness as a time to work on your relationship with the Lord first and foremost, allow Him to be your sustainer, and the rest will fall into place as it should. That’s not to say that you won’t face difficult times or that you’ll get exactly what you’re hoping for, but your faith will be built on a solid foundation.
If you’re already married and wondering if your prince was really a frog, I encourage you to purchase Stormie Omartian's The Power of the Praying Wife Devotional and begin praying for yourself, your husband, and your marriage. Spend time daily reading Scripture, find a good study plan, and take steps to invest in your own spiritual condition. If your marriage could use outside resources, visit the aacc.net to find a Christian Counselor near you.
