Finding a godly spouse

As I writing to you now, I am 30 years old, have been married for 5 years and have two beautiful boys. I just want to stop here and give glory to God because He has truly blessed and beautified me. Marriage and motherhood have revealed so much to me about myself and about life. I am simply grateful.

I want to take it back about 16 years though, when I was about 14 years old and starting to become aware of sex. At that time, I could feel sexual desire awakening, but thankfully, I grew up in a Christian home, so had particular guidance about sex and sexuality.

Nevertheless, as the years went on, sexual desire and attraction to the opposite sex was definitely increasing. During my teenage years, I had several boyfriends, but could never engage in full sexual intercourse with them because of my conviction to Christian teachings about sex; i.e. my body being the temple of the Holy Spirit and that sex should be saved for marriage. Every relationship that I got involved in, I always had a long-term view that this person could be my marriage partner, and so tried my best to try to get to know them, assess them and abstain from sexual intercourse. It was difficult because there weren't many Christian men in my immediate circle, so the guys that I dated were mostly non-Christian and as a result, getting them to abstain from sex was a struggle and I often had to break off the relationship.

As you can imagine, by time I got to my early twenties, I was a bit anxious and frustrated. I wondered whether I would ever find the right guy and get married. There I was, trying my best to follow God’s guidance about sex and sexuality and there was no one that I had met so far that was on the same page as me with regards to God’s will for relationships. I even went to the stage of explaining my desperation and desire to get married to my parents and entreated them to help find a suitable partner to marry. I was that desperate!

So I really started to pray about it and pray specifically towards marriage. I researched books about getting married, preparing for marriage and being a godly wife. I studied and read the books and started to apply the principles. I also specifically remember going to a Singles’ conference organised by KICC which I personally found very beneficial as its focus was on helping and preparing me to become a good marriage partner and knowing how to spot a good marriage partner myself. I started to become expectant that I would meet my spouse soon.

Surprisingly, a month after the KICC conference (April 2012), I was walking home alone from an event that I had taken a mentee to. It rather late, about 12 am I think, when I spotted a gentleman, immaculately dressed crossing the road towards me. I was 23 years old at the time. My first thoughts were: why is there a young guy immaculately dressed, at 12am at night, in East London? We crossed paths and I turned around to see if he was looking at me, because, as mentioned, I had been anticipating the arrival of a godly man and a potential marriage partner. When I turned around, I noticed that he had turned around too and was calling me to come to talk to him. I started to feel very nervous, but was still expectant, that this well-dressed man could be my husband.

We started to walk towards in each other, and in the middle of the street, we started to ask each other personal questions, a check-list almost - lol. My questions were: What is your name? How old are you? Where are you from? Are you a Christian? He had answered positively to all of the questions and I started to get quite excited and continued to be expectant. However, I was still very reserved and cautious as this guy was a total stranger and there was still lots to learn about him.

He offered to walk me home which I was very apprehensive about, but I decided to allow him to do so. After walking me home, he asked me for my number, and I gave it to him. A lot of things were going on in my heart at that the time, but I remained prayerful.

From then on, we started to see each other quite regularly and after about 2 months after dating, he asked to speak to my parents to ask for my hand in marriage! I was positively taken back. I had never experienced anything like this before and I knew that this guy was serious and was the man God had wanted me to be with. Nevertheless, I still had a lot of questions and doubts, but I kept on praying about the situation and putting God right in the centre. I even, presented my concerns to the guy at the time, and he would reassure me and talk words of wisdom to me. When I felt unsure about something, I too would go to God’s Word for guidance, and I would always trust His Word to guide me. I also, sought counsel from my pastors as well, just to make sure that I was making the right decision.

We ended up getting married in June 2013 (just over a year after meeting!) and have been happily married since. The journey to the altar was not easy, neither has marriage always been, but it is a blessing. Every day when I wake up, I take on the title as (his) wife and with the help of God serve as if I am working for God.

God granted me the desire of my heart but also protected and encouraged me from rebelling against his instructions with regards to sex. I am so grateful and praise God for His blessings.

My experience has taught me a lot and I would give the following advice to those waiting on a spouse:

1. Study what the word of God says about relationships and marriage.

2. Try your very best to follow what the Word of God says (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

3. If you do slip up or sin, be repentant, ask for forgiveness and try your best follow what God's Word has said (even though you have already sinned - get back up and start again!).

4. Your faith or belief in God's Word will be tested, i.e. sometimes it may look as the person is not the one for you, but you have to keep praying and believing the Word of God. If you have the glorification of God as your end goal then things will work out well for you.

5. If you are both Christians, aiming to serve God, both desire marriage and have a Kingdom outlook then this is also a great foundation for building a relationship and for marriage.

6. Seek godly counsel for areas of your relationship that you are not sure about; confide in a trusted Christian, parents or Pastor. Then try to follow that advice.

He is a good God.