"Boys Who Cry Marriage"

This study is based on my personal experience of relentlessly pursuing marriage for eight years, and my journey back to re-discovering what really matters in life.  

Excerpt

In 1998 I met a preacher, we fell in love, and it appeared that we were on the fast track to marriage. On Valentine’s Day 1999 he boldly stated from the pulpit how special I was to him, and how he looked forward to the day when the Lord would tell him that it was time for me to become “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh”. Eight years later I was still not married, and I had an overwhelming feeling that we were no where close to getting married. I vividly remember the days that I begged, pleaded, and tried to convince my boyfriend that I would make a wonderful wife. In those moments I had no pride, and I lowered myself to the place of begging a man to marry me. The subject of marriage would arise only in times of crisis, but once all was forgiven and the tumultuous moment had passed my relationship continued on in a repetitive cycle that offered no stability and left me feeling frustrated, inadequate, and unfulfilled. I allowed my obsession to blind me to the truth, and instead of focusing on my personal growth and development, I focused on feeding my marriage obsession.

After eight long years I decided that I no longer wanted to be defined by my marriage obsession. I began to reevaluate my perspective on marriage, and while I still acknowledged that it was something I desired, I also knew that I could no longer let it consume me. As I reflected on those past eight years of my life, I remember being so inspired when I realized that the number eight symbolizes new beginnings. This perspective was a gift from God, because I knew that moving forward I didn’t want to be bitter or angry, my desire was to learn from the experience and to emerge with a positive attitude. This was my opportunity to start anew, and I started this new phase in my life by confronting my relationship with God, my relationship with myself, and my relationship with my man.  I learned that by controlling my marriage desires versus letting my marriage desires control me I would position myself to hear more clearly the voice of God.

As women who are desirous of marriage, we need to cultivate a healthy marriage perspective so that we can remain empowered and true to ourselves throughout this process. We have to be ever so careful not to allow marriage to become a “god” in our lives, where it becomes that thing that we pursue with our whole heart and even put before our relationship with our true God. When we take our focus off of God and put it on our marriage desires, we allow ourselves to become distracted from our God-given assignments. The enemy would love nothing more than to destroy us, but he has also accomplished his goal if we are rendered ineffective. You can’t give your all to God if you are giving your all to your marriage pursuit, trust me I learned this lesson the hard way. If we keep God first in all things everything else will fall into place according to his timing. Put God first, trust in him and in his timing, listen to his voice and he will give you the desires of your heart.