Dear Future Husband.

This week I will celebrate my first Valentine’s Day as a married woman. Can I say I’m a little excited!? Honestly, it wasn't always this way. Valentine’s Day is a mixed bag in our world. Some completely forget about it, others celebrate it the whole month while others host a Gal-entine’s day (women celebrating singleness) and others boycott all public displays (aka social media) all together. I have to say at one point or another I’ve done all of these things. However, Valentine’s Day is just one day out of 365 days and I definitely have thought about Valentine’s Day themes every other day of the year.

When I was a kid, I learned the foundational reason why we recognize February 14th. Summed up quite simply, it was the day St. Valentine imprisoned by the Roman Empire in circa 200AD standing up for the sanctity and constitution of marriage. St. Valentine wrote letters to the jailer's daughter before he was executed. That is a pretty good reason to have Valentine's Day if you ask me. But, over the centuries, his story has been more or less forgotten as we all show off or hide our relationship statuses.

Now, I grew up in the era of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, purity rings, and Rebecca St. James’ song ‘Wait for Me’. In fact, when I was 13 years old, I went to a RSJ concert filled with wide eyed, hormone happy teenage girls and it was there the then single singer told her audience that she wrote love letters to her future husband. (Insert the wide-eye emoji here.) At first, I thought how silly that was, but in the days and weeks following, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind.

I was from a small town and I knew a lot of great guys and most of my friends had boyfriends. I didn’t have an issue with dating, but I watched from the sidelines as society redefine what dating was and what it looked like. In my teenage years, I saw the dating 'extremes' go from two people going out to get to know each other to a ‘swipe to the right’, insecure, unstable hookup culture. Like anybody else, I saw breakups and heartache and it was enough to make me wonder if dating was a necessary evil to get married. As I tried to shove 'dating' to the back of my mind and focus on schooling and work, RSJ’s challenge kept surfacing and I was hit with the realization one day – wow, if I get married, that means my husband is alive somewhere out there right now. 'Finding' him seemed this impossible, painful task, but my little girl heart still dreamed of the 'love story'. So sitting in my bedroom, I pulled out a lined piece of paper and scribbled out, in a shy sort of way, a ‘hello’ to my husband. Ever since that day, I grew in confidence and peace that this was something positive for my heart.

Well, that letter slowly became a stack of letters - responses of hope when I felt lonely or insecure or was overloaded by the question: ‘so, any men in your life?’ I wrote the letters when ‘he’ came to mind and I wanted to pray for him. I wrote the dates on the top of each letter so that when I did show him, just maybe God put him on my heart at that point in time because maybe on that day he got into an accident, or his grandmother died, or he was writing a big test. I thought, how cool would that be? God cared about him enough to inform his future wife through the promptings of prayer years before they had even met.

My mindset shifted from pessimism to faith, from doubt to expectation. By practicing to trust in God, my heart aligned with His promises. The letter writing was really a conduit, but the truth came from the settling in my heart that if I never got married or never dated, my worth would not change, my love would not diminish, and my heart would not be offended or hurt.

After writing letters in secret for over a decade, I began to hear about men and women along the way (including my own husband) who had prayed for and written letters to their future someone. I thought are all these people really hopeless romantics? Or was something else happening? Was God guiding them? Were their hearts in a pure, faithful, holy place? The more I read and focused in on the hope of love, the happier I became. A respect for ‘true love’ in this world has been laughed off because we have cheapened it and tainted it in so many ways, but to see women and men both young and old writing to their future spouse was a blessing.

As I worked through my own heart’s condition and have spoken to so many beautiful couples and singles, I truly think dating is an awesome idea. If you’re ready for the possible end result (marriage), it is a great way to get to know someone. When I did start to date, I loved it. I also don’t believe in soul mates. I do believe you mate souls with the one you choose. Free will was apart of the deal with humanity. I mean what if Adam and Eve’s grandson got tired of waiting for Miss Right and married Miss Wrong, and they had a kid who was obviously the wrong kid because Mr. Right didn’t marry Mrs. Right, then he wouldn’t marry the right person and so on and so forth. But, I do believe God knows who your person is. He’s an honouring God and gives you choice. Personally, I don’t believe at love at first sight. I do believe in lust at first sight. We are a very visual culture and the price of love based on how we look is not holy. We need to fight for the journey of romance and the love story the Lord has for us.

Two years before I met my husband, I spoke at a girl’s conference on purity and writing love letters to their future husbands. I wanted to give the girls another perspective when they think about their future man. I read them a letter I had written to my future husband. Here it is:

Dear Future Husband,

I love a lot of things – nature, traveling, my family, I love writing, learning, good coffee, I love long walks, stargazing, books, I love the mountains, the South African accent, painting, cheese cake, I love big blue skies, fairytales. I love a lot of things, and I also really love you, my future husband. Even though I don’t know who you are.

I may not know you, but I have thought of you almost every day. Not in a vague "someday, one day" manner, but in an actual, literal, real and specific way. I pray for you darling. When the sun goes down, and it's just me and Jesus, we talk about you. Babe, all I can say is that I am enamored by you. I've had to realize that I am not a lonely, desperate girl looking for anyone's attention, rather, I am simply sharing what I wholeheartedly feel and experience.

For a while I've been writing about my academic life, my spiritual journey, or my personal life, but I must admit, you definitely are worth spending time writing to. The most precious gift I have to give to you is time and I want to give you something that travels through time.

I need to be real with myself; you may never read this letter. I may never meet you and get married to you, but it’s not a curse, the Bible talks about the blessing of singleness – I remind myself actively that it’s ok. We may get married in a few years or I may get a career first and meet you after I ‘settle down’. I may travel the world and be found by you. But, no matter where you are, what you are doing, and how you are feeling, I love you. Jesus knows. All I need to do is fully submit all my thoughts, my emotions, and my heart longings to trusting in that fact.

I love you, for always, K.

On an evening soon after we were married, I pulled out a journal stuffed with letters and handed it to my husband. “These are for you.” I smiled and watched him flip through all the gel penned, stickered, cursive, tear stained, lip stick kissed pages. I sometimes flip back through those pages and want to hold that little girl’s hand and tell her she did good. She was setting her heart up right and keeping her mind fixed on good things. Even though she thought she was crazy and weird, she did good.

I don’t know if your single, married, divorced, have girls or boys who are wondering and struggling about their future someone, but I hope these thoughts encouraged your heart. When writing about love, the Apostle Paul never mentioned anything about marriage or about St. Valentine or singleness or divorce or Gal-entine’s day, but rather paints a timeless truth of what love regardless of circumstance looks like: “Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honour. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offence. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.” (1 Cor. 13:4-7 TPT)

Much love,

AKS

Tips on Writing Letters to Your Future Spouse

1. Things You're Looking Forward To One of the most enjoyable things to wrote to my future spouse were things that I'm looking forward to doing with them. It can be anything from fulfilling bucket list wishes, to dancing in the rain, to watching movies together. And don't worry about being cheesy. Plus, it's a good way to start a bank of date ideas. 2. Hopes and Dreams Talk to them about things you'd like to accomplish together such as goals in life that you can only do with two people. This can also fall under the previous category, but don't be afraid to talk about more 'serious' topics. You two will be talking about them all your life. Dream big, dream specifically, dream deeply.

3. Prayers Praying for your future and your future spouse is one of the most amazing things you can pray about. Pray for them now. Pray for their spiritual growth, their job, schooling, and their family. Pray for when you two meet. Pray for your relationship. Pray for your marriage. Pray for your children. And writing down these prayers and recording them to be able to read in years to come is really precious. 4. Things You Love Yes, the things you love to do may change, but how fun to share what you love to do right now. You’d be surprised about how much the ‘little’ things can get skipped over while you’re dating. It’s fun for them to read down the road and it may just rekindle something.

5. Verses, Quotes and Songs One thing I love doing is writing down verses from the Bible or lyrics from songs or romantic quotes. They're fun little sparkles to add to entries. And it's always so fun to know that you can sing those songs to them someday. And read those verses together. And say those quotes directly to them.

#faith #jesus #trust #christianity #love #valentines #hope #marriage #dating