Face forward - even if not moving forward

Over the last month or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about a certain young woman. Some of that thinking has not been of the purist kind. Yet whenever I close my eyes, her face and frame is there. She is very pretty and very smart. She has had some very painful experiences over the last few years, both physically and with people she has known. But she is not giving up on God or abandoning her faith. If I were to ask her out sometime for a cup of coffee, would that cloud my judgement or my perceptions of who she really is? Considering my past experience with marriage, and a previous courtship that revealed we were not God’s choices for each other, I realize I do need help.

I have a couple of Joshua Harris’ books. They are a good source of wisdom to avoid the sexually charged pitfalls of our modern western culture – and that’s just for Christians. Today I downloaded a couple of sermons by Josh. They were done with his years of experience being married and with the memory of what it was like when he was single. He spoke about the importance of church community in regards to investing in single people and toward any perceived goals of marriage. I can say from first hand experience that many churches and parishioners abandon single people who don’t fit in the “married” and “family” moulds. The older you are, the worse this predicament becomes.

But I have been finding out, however, that there are a few people who are having a heart for me to be married again. I’ve heard that I need “companionship” or somebody knows someone that I should be introduced to in a non-charged social setting (weddings are out!). What hurts the most is the lack of these helpful people to get to know me or my family background. They wouldn’t do that with their own children, but somehow these rules don’t seem to apply to adult peers. I beg to differ.

Two of my favourite and most romantic stories of Godly courtship and marriage are Isaac and Ruth. Isaac was the favoured son of Sarah. The child of God’s promise to Abraham. Sarah had just died and Abraham determined Isaac needed a wife. But not just any wife. Abraham commissioned his most senior and trusted servant to go back to the country of his family and look there. This servant knew Abraham’s faith and Isaac’s needs. He had lived with the family a long time. On the way, the servant implored upon his master’s God to help him find a suitable woman. The search was successful and Rebekah went back to the land of Canaan with the blessing of her family. But this is my favourite phrase of the whole story, “Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”

By and large, women do not understand the “comfort” they can bring to their husbands. It can be a physical and emotional satisfaction. I suppose many times women are “used”, but I think it’s important for women to understand what a source of blessing they can be to their men. Some men, unfortunately, are pretty helpless at communicating to their women how special they are. But I digress.

A search for a wife (or a husband, for that matter) is a communal affair involving faith, intimate family history, prayer, searching within the family of God and praise for a successful marriage. I know a few marriages and courtships that have all these elements and it makes me happy to recount these events, because it’s all for the glory of God. I would not want anything less for me or a future wife.