As I get closer to the marrying age, the thought of it gets even scarier. On Christmas Day, my Physics teacher in High School asked me if I already found the right man and my plans for marrying soon. I answered, “I’m still searching, Sir”. He said “No. Don’t search for it, pray for it.”
I stand corrected. My teacher was right. I’d better pray for it while waiting, or else I will certainly have to pray for it every day, I swear every day if I ended with the wrong man. Marriage is not something we can idly do. Everything should be taken care of before jumping into it.
Now few days before Christmas, I attended a friend’s wedding. The couple was my college classmates and we were very happy to see them finally tied the knot after their8-year relationship. They are both servants. When I saw her parents handed her hands to the groom at the end of the aisle, I got mixed emotions. Imagining myself as the bride, I suddenly got scared. The moment is like surrendering your whole being to a man who was once a stranger.
For a woman, marriage is bigger and scarier compared to a man, as she will lose her identity, her freedom, her body during pregnancy, and even her career. She has to leave her home moving away from family and friends so that she could serve and strengthen him. She needs to surrender to him.
Ephesians 5:22-24 say,”22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” In everything.
If I am meant to get married then I should understand that I am obliged to submit to him. That is scarier than I thought marriage would be. And if I am meant to entrust everything to him, then I ought to know if we fit together and could live peacefully in the same roof. A woman should know what kind of man she is going to live with for the rest of her life. At least know his favorite food, movies he’d love to watch, what pissed him off or what are the things he cannot forgive.
Likewise, if he wants to marry me, I want to know how close he is to his own family because a family is everything to me. I need to know if he would be comfortable watching Korean Dramas with me. I hope he’s not going to laugh when he sees me crying over Korean-dramas ‘coz I actually do that. I love sleeping. Would it be fine if I wake up late during my rest days? Will he go with me to outreaches and prayer meetings? I would love it if we could both serve the Lord in our own simple ways.
There’s just a lot that I need to know about him and the things he needs to know about me in order for us to share the same roof. That is why marriage is not something we can simply fail. I realized that marriage is something that should be given by God’s grace. We cannot simply do it because we want but we should continuously ask God for guidance and seek his grace and leading.
The Lord always wants the best for us; the best life, best partner, and best dreams. I pray that every woman learns to surrender everything to God before surrendering her everything to a man in marriage.
THE MARRIAGE PRAYER BY JOHN WALLER
