What I Didn't Know I Should Pray For...

Earlier this week, an acquaintance posted a provoking quote on Facebook that I'd never considered.  It resonated with me so much.  It hit on those memories of praying for so many years for a godly husband with whom to share my life.  But it also made me realize that there were SO many things I didn't even pray for during that time.  Because I just didn't even know I needed to!  

Obviously, marriage is hard.  Transforming two souls into one flesh is beautiful, but at times it's raw and painful too.  I think it's harder the longer you wait, the older you are too... primarily because independence (read: stubbornness) and autonomy have to give way to mutual submission as brother and sister in Christ.  

I distinctly remember the night (or really early A.M.) of January 13, 2018.  I had been to a hockey game with one of my gal pals, and we'd had such an amazing night!  I knew my *date* was the next day after morning worship service, and I was nervous!  I had been on a couple casual dates since my divorce, but I had not been in a relationship since that one that broke me so badly.  A decade of singleness... in other words, a really long time to become even more stubborn, aggressive, and anxious about the whole dating process and men in general.  But when I returned home in the wee hours of that morning, I remember sitting down to talk to God about the next day.  I "wrote" (i.e. typed) out the things on my mind and prayed to God about this man I was about to meet.  (If you know our story, you know I had actually already met him, but we didn't remember each other.)  I prayed for so many things that night.  And I had been praying for God's man for me for that decade.  But looking back, I didn't even know the half of what I would have been wise to pray for.  

Prayer is no doubt the most powerful, yet underused weapon in our Christian arsenal.  And I have to admit that I underuse it even now.  I have no idea the blessings that could unfold for me if I could really practice this communication and meditation with God to the degree and depth that I should.  I intend to get better at it daily, but there are so many things I don't think to pray for!  And that little Facebook post I saw made me realize upon reflection that there are so many things that I never even dreamed of praying for before I ever met my mister.  

If you're in that wait, sis... here's some collective advice from my own experiences and from those of a few trusted girlfriends who I asked to weigh in with me on this idea.  

• Your body image.  We are put upon hard by this society we live in.  Magazines, movies, music, and societal standards tell us that to be "wifed" we must be the "right" kind of thick, the "right" kind of thin, sexy but not slutty, provocative but not promiscuous... and so on.  Whether you have fallen prey to these LIES from Satan or not, you have likely struggled with your body image.  I think that's a universal issue for women that defies age, race, or religion.  But you are intentionally designed and created by God, and your beauty is moving to Him and it should be to your husband as well.  Admittedly, I have struggled SO MUCH in this area and still do, so I'm not saying I have all this figured out.  But I know that a healthy body image has to be worked at... it doesn't happen by accident.  And without it, you can have a "good" marriage, but I believe that - because of how our husbands are designed and our own sexuality is designed - when we have a healthy body image, our marriage health can transcend to incredible new heights.  I have seen and felt how my low self esteem affects my husband, and if I had it to do over again, I would pray fervently for my own confidence and body image so that 1) I would enjoy my own body the way God intended, 2) my husband would benefit from my confidence and enthusiasm, and 3) our intimacy would grow to never imagined heights.  You hurt your husband when you cannot appreciate your own beauty and allow him to do the same.  
• His (and your) sexual purity (or strength against temptation of any kind).  I think we pray about this one from time to time, but I didn't pray as much as I should have.  While we are bombarded to BE perfection, our husbands are bombarded to EXPECT perfection.  Our society is trying to set us both up for failure.  By the time of your marriage (even if you marry young), your husband - and statistics say YOU now too - will have been exposed to pornography or at the very least "soft porn"-like advertisements and immodesty at every turn.  PRAY FOR HIS FIGHT.  I've written before that I do not understand it, but I now have at least a somewhat better understanding of how hard this fight is for a man.  That fight is one of the reasons the blessing of sexuality in a scriptural marriage is such a wonderful thing... because it is a God-ordained healthy expression of this sexual gift from God.  But the world is trying to sabotage the purity of the marriage bed before our children are even out of grade school now!  The assault is repulsive and burdensome.  Pray for your future husband (and YOU) to remain strong in the face of sexual desire and temptation.  Or any other temptation that may or may not coincide, like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.  Pray he would be surrounded with godly male influences to hold him accountable in this battle, and pray the same for yourself for female influences.  Then also pray that once you two are in a relationship that you will maintain that same level of purity with one another and that you would both know when the time is right to make that commitment toward marriage so as not to postpone your union, risking a sexual stumble on both your parts.  Both sides of this battle are difficult and deserve our attention in prayer.
• Unresolved trauma.  This is another one that hits close to home for me.  All of us have experienced trauma to some degree, and it's quite a relative concept.  (In other words, what's truly physiologically and psychologically traumatic for one person may not be for another.  Circumstances can be relative and cumulative.)  Either way, you're bringing some baggage into your marriage.  Whether it's a traumatic childhood, previous physical/emotional/sexual abuse, a significant loss or death in the past, or anything that affects your attachment style, these wounds will affect your marriage.  The only thing you get to choose is HOW they affect your marriage, and for someone who's experienced trauma (and the reshaping of the brain that accompanies it), that's an almost insurmountable challenge.  We should pray to be in tune with our pasts so that we know our triggers and our potential areas of weakness and also be mature enough and ready to discuss those vulnerably with our future husbands.  Be ready to understand and receive his unresolved trauma too (though it's likely that he may not be as reflective or as articulate as you, so this may take some perceptive work on your part).  Pray that God would completely heal those wounds so that they could not be used to infiltrate or damage your marriage.  
• Communication and intentionality.  I find this to be an area where our societal norms for men damage our relationships before they even begin sometimes.  Men are, by design, less communicative than women, but that doesn't mean that they cannot learn to be communicative.  Pray that God helps you to boldly and confidently be able to share yourself openly with your future husband and that God would give him the words and unity within himself to be able to exchange his thoughts and feelings with you too.  Pray he is self-aware enough to be intentional and to recognize his feelings for you.  When a man knows what he needs, wants, and desires, and you know your own needs, wants, and desires, open communication and intentionality can save a lot of wasted time and hurt feelings.  Whether that means you meet someone and realize you aren't compatible with one another and decide to part ways, or whether you meet someone who absolutely adores you, but he cannot find the words to say it or was raised that the idea to communicate such feelings is indicative of weakness... you WANT communication and intentionality.  It will keep you from spending time with "the wrong one" and wasting time being insecure and dragging your feet to commit with "the right one".   
• Mutual growth.   I love this idea.  One of the purposes of marriage is to make us more HOLY.  To bring unity between two halves, two complements, and to strive together toward heaven... the ultimate goal.  So how foolish is it that we wouldn't pray for this from the beginning?  Or even before you even meet your mister.  My counselor once said that God has a way of bringing you together with someone to push on one another's buttons and issues to resolve hurts or issues from the past.  In this way, you make one another better and more complete.  I couldn't love that idea more!  It gives purpose to our past hurts.  And I've found it to be true in my own marriage.  That makes for some very painful moments of growth at times, but it can result in our ultimate strength and unification if we let it.  Even when you commit your life to your spouse, chances are life will hit you hard at times.  We as humans grow and change over the course of a lifetime even without facing tragedy and difficulties, but pray in advance that God would have you all the way through those times and that ultimately your marriage would be one of mutual growth, no matter what comes your way.  
• Selflessness and submission.  Yep.  I went there.  I am a self-proclaimed stubborn independent woman who's greatly struggled with submission to my husband.  And I know I must give him fits at times.  Bless him for all he has put up with from me.  But he is so Christlike in his meekness that when I climb down off my independent high horse, I realize how much he shows the love of Christ in how he uses his authority in our marriage.  I'm so proud of him for that.  But it took him a while to learn and cultivate that strength.  Oh, how I wish I'd been praying over that for him before we'd even met!  Regardless of your future husband's personality (or yours for that matter), being a leader is hard and comes with heavy responsibilities.  He needs your prayers for strength and wisdom before you even meet him!  Pray he's out there right now doing and studying the things he needs to do to become a selfless yet strong leader for your family unit.  Pray for yourself to have the humility and desire to submit to him.  And pray that - in a different sense of submission - that you both are cultivating the attitude of proper and holy mutual submission (i.e. respect and sacrifice) for one another, even before you're joined in marriage!  Oh, what a powerful marriage you could be building before you ever say, "I do."
• God's will, not your own.  This one may seem painfully obvious.  But how often do we - not just in the sense of relationships, but in every area of our lives - tell God what WE want and then try to justify and puppeteer the situation until we get what we want.  We think we know best.  So we try to tell God to make this person (i.e. this "crush" or whomever we have our eyes fixed on), right for us, instead of asking, "God, is this the person you have for me?"  Trust me... you don't want to commit your life to someone and realize that you likely forced that situation into being and that it was never in your best interest.  That is a lifetime of regret, sister.  Pray that you have discernment and patience to know and accept God's will for you.  
• And finally... the one that inspired this post... his family and their relationship with you.  As much as we want to think about marriage being just between the husband and the wife, there's a reason God addresses the structure of the family design even before Adam and Eve bore children.  Think about it... God declared that a man was to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife BEFORE Adam even had a mother and father to leave... in his omniscient design, God knew this one would be hard for generation after generation.  Joining two families disrupts the existing dynamic and can make for volatility.  Pray that your future in-laws can love and accept you, that they desire to understand you and support you in your marriage and in your spirituality.  Pray for your future husband to be strong enough to exercise needful boundaries for your marriage.  And pray the same that your family loves and honors him as well!