Marriage isn't everything.

I was sitting in bed on my phone, my usual position as an 18-year-old and a post on Pinterest popped up about praying for your future husband. I didn't think much of it and kept scrolling. When I finally decided to put my phone down I felt a weird tugging on my spirit. A voice in my head that wasn't my own said, “pray for him.” My first thought was, but why? I’m a single 18-year-old girl with two jobs. I’m not in college and I’m living with my parents, I’m not getting married anytime soon. 

I decided to follow the voice (God) and opened an empty journal that had been sitting on my nightstand for who knows how long. Here was my first entry:

(p.s. looking back at this journal I realized how much of a total cheese ball I am. You've been warned…)

2/29/16 11:10 pm 

Hello Future Hubby!

    I wanted to start this journal because I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately…(2018 Sofia here: that statement is not true lol!) Just thinking about how strong our love is going to be and how awesome our lives are gonna be. I love you so much and I don't even know you…HA! 

    I guess to give you a little background on me at the moment: I’m 18, I love Jesus, I love to sing and act, I love chocolate and spicy food, and I have crazy, wonderful, (sometimes I feel out of reach), DREAMS. You’ll get to know the rest of me later I guess. :)

    So I really hope you love Jesus too and I want to share some Bible verses with you to encourage you and strengthen your faith. I hope these start a fire in your heart. 

May the Holy Spirit move through you in these verses. 

Love ya! -Sofia

I then go on to list about 10 bible verses all written out by hand. 

I don't doubt that it was God who told me to pray for my future husband. A month after I wrote this I met Caleb!

I also believe that God intervened and told me to pray for Caleb because first, He knew what was coming and second, I needed to begin to prepare my heart and mind for marriage and understand the huge responsibility I was about to take on.

If you couldn't tell from the entry, I’m a romantic. Because of that, I had a skewed view of marriage. I believed that my life would be complete when I got married. Everything would fall into place, I would be fulfilled and have a purpose in my life. I would cross “the finish line” and I would have my life together. 

This very wrong idea brought me hope at that time in my life where I wasn't sure about a lot of things. I didn't know where my life was going and it was too overwhelming to think about so I distracted myself instead. My room was an absolute wreck, when I wasn't at work I was constantly on my phone or watching Netflix, and my relationship with God was inconsistent.

When I started this journal I was fantasizing about my future husband more than I had any interest in praying for him. God needed to redirect my thinking and show me how big of a deal marriage actually is. It’s a holy covenant. A binding vow. A promise between a man, a woman, and God.

In a way only God could, He used this journal to draw me closer to Him. He used it to give me the push I needed to come into a committed relationship with Him. God used this experience to show me that He wants to be with me. He wants me to make time for Him. He began to work on me so that I would be prepared for the giant promise I was going to make about a year later. 

I share all this to say: ask God to show you the truth of what marriage really is so that when that time comes, you’ll stand in front of that man knowing that he will never complete you or fulfill you as your Father can.

I wish I understood that more clearly when I married Caleb. I did such a disservice to him at the beginning of our marriage. I put way too much pressure on him to be the “perfect husband”. I was blind to my own selfishness and was expecting him to fulfill all my needs. I had to learn the hard way that Caleb would never be able to satisfy my soul because that’s not his responsibility. 

If you are a single person reading this, please learn from my mistakes. Stop thinking that once you get married you’ll have your life together. The truth is, marriage puts a microscope on all of your stuff you haven't dealt with. All your baggage you've brought with you is out on the table and you have to fight to overcome it. Take marriage off the pedestal you've created and ask God to prepare you with His truth. 

Marriage is a beautiful thing created by God but it isn't everything. God is and always will be, everything you need.