When I was ten years old, I remember my teacher telling my mum at a parent-teacher conference: "Ashley is a really smart young lady and she could do so much better if she wanted to...but at times she is just caught up in her own world, where she sits and waits for a King on his white horse to come and take her to his palace".
The moment she said that I saw the picture in my head. My King and me on a white horse riding down the sunset to our palace. And I actually never saw anything wrong with that dream. As a matter of fact, she was right. That's all I ever wanted. For the most time of my life, I thought I was a rich queen swapped at birth or something and one day my true Kingdom would come and find me and take me out of my misery. (I know...I've always been a bit different)
It's only now, years later that I haven't totally given up on that dream but have come to my senses and I understand now that if I desire to be the wife of a King this is not the time to be sitting pretty and wait for Him to just magically appear, but that this is rather the most important time of my life: it's preparation time.
The parable of the wise and the foolish virgins in Matthew 25 is that simple: the five foolish ones didn't do what they were supposed to do while they were waiting for the groom so when He came they weren't ready. Your singleness is a season of preparation. The amount of effort you invest in your singleness will determine your marriage.
Being a 25-year-old single woman without a degree is not something I really imagined for myself when my teacher said that when I was only 10. But since then I've brought the desire to be married before God and ever since I did that I feel like I have been in a Bootcamp with Him. He just teaches me so much about Himself, people and myself each day and it's preparing me for what I want so much. We really have to ask ourselves are we preparing what we're praying for?
I have found that there are many characteristics that I have that God wouldn't want me to carry into my marriage and annoy His son with. So He's shaping me and training me to be the helper my husband will need. I read a quote this week that said your beauty will get you into marriage but your character will take you back to your parents home.
The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.
Proverbs 14:1
1. Build intimacy with God before you build intimacy with a man:
If your only idea of intimacy is based on touching, kissing, cuddling and you know what I think you might get pretty disappointed once you enter into marriage. Because you will find yourself having all that but still missing something. That's because true love, true intimacy, true affection can only be found in God. It doesn't get deeper than Him in you and you in Him spiritually. When we develop this deep and intimate relationship with God first it will define the standards we will have for our earthly Kings. We won't have to check twice if it's a good man or a God-man..whether it's love or lust because we will know what it looks like when we see it.
Our singleness is the time to be as close to God as possible and build our first love so that when your husband comes God won't fear for His spot.
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
John 14:20
2. Build a prayer life now.
One way of building this type of intimacy is in prayer. I might copy the point "prayer" into all my posts because I feel like I keep repeating myself. But hey I'm not going to lie. Prayer is our access to heaven. This is how we communicate with God. We get vision, clarity, power, peace, healing and so much more when we pray. A praying woman becomes a praying wife and a praying mother.When you have a habit of praying as a single you won't struggle as much when a person comes into your life to keep it up. It's also important to start praying for your future husband before you even know him. The prayers you pray now may save his life. They may preserve your family 20 years from now. They may cut short the plans of destruction, death, and terror of the enemy. The life, the marriage, the home you desire is built in prayer now. This ain't the time to be sleeping. Pray without ceasing.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:16
3. Get to know yourself
Up until a year ago, I thought I was the ultimate wifey material and any guy should just thank God for getting a woman like me. I didn't know that I was a weirdo until a year ago. I didn't know that I can be very jealous in a relationship until some time ago. And God showed me that it had to do with my insecurities.
God has brought to light a lot of things I didn't even know about myself. Believe me in this preparation season and as you prepare for what you're praying for God can really bring you to the ends of yourself. He will reintroduce you to yourself and show you new sights and angles of yourself. The good the bad and the ugly and it can be very painful at times. But when we don't know who we are in Christ before a man comes into the picture we will be like leaves in the wind. We will try to build our identity off of our husbands and that's not the poor man's job.
Our identity has to be in Christ before we bare the last name of a man we bear the name of Jesus and we allow Him to show us who we are in Him before anyone else does.
Let God really shape your character now while it's still just you. This is the kind of growth you have to go through for yourself and by yourself. That's why I think it's hard when I see couples who meet very young because they are still trying to find out who they are for themselves...imagine doing that with another person in your life. It's not impossible if it's the will of God but it's very hard. When one person in a marriage has a midlife crisis 20 plus years into the marriage it's a challenge that the couple is by then equipped to conquer but you don't want to be in an identity crisis a year into this. So make sure you truly know who you are before you enter into marriage.
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son, he delights in
Proverbs 3:12
4. Enjoy Gods covering
An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband.
1 Corinthians 7:34
Let go of the lie that you can't fully walk in your purpose without a husband. I have believed that lie for the longest time and it is not true. Whatever God wants to accomplish in you will not require the help of a man. It is not by might...not by power but by the Spirit of God. Understand this: God is your heavenly Father, He is your covering. When a man comes into your life and takes you as his wife he then takes the responsibility of the Father for the woman. That's why it's so important that we marry a man who is submitted to God first. I mean the saying is true that you marry someone who is like your Father.
Once you have a husband you will have to work on maintaing a healthy home and marriage. It will take sacrifice, time and devotion that you can now freely give to Go without any repocutions. but once you becme the wife of a man things will change. Enjoy the time you have to attend every prayer meeting, the quite times, the conversations because that's something you won't have as much time to enjoy once you're married.
But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
I Corinthians 11:3
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