"Tamara haven't you said that God has for you a man of after His own heart?" My friend recalled what I told her 6 months ago, impressed by God after a listening prayer.

Half a year later, I had forgotten what God had spoked over my life. How easy it is to forget. My friend, Amanda is engaged by now. So I asked her, "How are you preparing for your marriage?" She shared what God told her in preparation, "If you don’t allow Me in this relationship and in the marriage, you won’t be able to live into the full potential of the marriage." 

Wow. It's so powerful and so true that if a relationship is not first rooted in God, our selfish selves would detract the full enjoyment of giving and loving in the relationship. 

“What does that look like?” I was intrigued.

“Well, before we go on date nights, to be in line with the Lord and prayerful first. One night God impressed, "You will be tested, tonight." And God prepared me for hard conversations with my partner.” She explained.

I begin to see how important it is to be emotionally healthy & spiritually mature first before entering into the most intimate form of relationship—marriage.

How Do we Prepare for Our Boaz?

In the Book of Ruth in the Bible, there is a story about how Ruth met her kinsmen-redeemer, Boaz. A story of how God redeemed sorrow to beauty through an unlikely circumstances that displayed the example of faithfulness.

When a famine devasted Bethlehem, Naomi and her husband sojourned in Moab, and their two sons took Moabite wives named Ruth and Orpah. But after a decade, the women were left widowed. And Naomi, attempted to release her daughters-in-law, allowing them to re- marry and leave her. Orpah agrees and returns to her family. However, Ruth refuses to leave Naomi, declaring (Ruth 1:16–17), “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried.”

Following Naomi, Ruth worked hard in the fields to provide for the both of them. That was when a man named Boaz, who owned the field, saw her.He said:

“I have had a complete account of what you have done for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death; you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom previously you did not know. May the Lord reward what you have done! May you receive a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge.” – Ruth 2:11-12

Ruth’s obedience and faithfulness in doing the right thing led her ‘fateful encounter’ with Boaz—and they became the future ancestor of Jesus, the coming King of the world.

So in this time of preparation, to what field is God calling you to glean in and towards?

Faithfulness to Honor our Future Husband

An older spiritual mentor asked me, “How will you honor your future husband now? If you are entertaining things you shouldn’t, is it honoring him?

For women, in terms of purity, it is valuable because we protect it.. So we learn to protect it first unto the Lord and then later for our husband.

He had to do the work of uprooting in the soil of your heart.

- He had to uproot my wrong belief and the need for constant affirmation from others

- He had to work on my character —-blaming others, anger, and complaining heart

- He had to process me to let go off certain sins

-He had to teach me about His purpose for me

From this time of singleness, God sanctifies us. And there are lessons to learn in this time of protection.

God is a good God, that means He gives us freewill to choose. Grace is unconditional, but God also wants us to walk with Him.

He asks you and I, “Do you want what I have for you? We will not get God’s second best unless we choose to. What He has for us is the best.

My friend told me: There is the pain of discipline and there is also the pain of disappointment. It will be painful either way. One bears fruit, the other does not. Which would you want?

 —

Bad things may have happened to you. You have thought you would have prepared well, but somewhere along the waiting, you got tired and you made mistakes. God is saying, He can still gie you His best.

And, I promise you.

Just as those who had walked before us has experienced, everything will be so beautiful in its time, my dear.

I am excited for what is to come for you and me, believing He knows best. I look forward for the day where I will say to my future husband, “I honored you in my waiting.”

Prepare well,

Tam