Excellent husband needed, not just wanted! Part 1

OK, so within the week I found myself in a position of crying out to God in frustration about a number of things, chiefly the fact of feeling overwhelmed with so many things to do, so many aspirations, and not enough time to do them all. (I guess that might reasonably serve as a hint to cut back on aspirations and personal dreams, however I was feeling frustrated at being unable to squeeze in even time for basic things into my schedule.)  And then on top of that something so small and trivial happened, (I lost my keys, if you must ask – and as I write they are still naughtily hiding from me!) – this is so small, but on top of everything else I was feeling deeply frustrated.  So much so that I did not even want to pray.  Rather I would have preferred to have sulked like a child.  However I did pray.  Sometimes as a Christian you have to force yourself to praise God, even when you don’t “feel” like it.  Thankfully, over the course of my praise and prayer, God restored my joy to me as He always does – always – even though I still ended up feeling a little low afterwards (which probably means that I did not persevere in prayer/praise long enough for the negative mood to lift completely).

So there is the first lesson of this post, which I myself would do well to remember – this is how to be joyful, and how to remain joyful!  For me, I have to get to a place of feeling positive and able first before I can tackle anything, before I can draw up plans and execute them.  Feeling positive and excited about life is like basic fuel for my existence.  Perhaps that is why as a person I generally do lots of things, initiate lots of goals and ideas, because I generally live in a state of excitement and positivity and vision.  However, days when I don’t pray, for whatever reason, or I don’t pray adequately  – on those days I can never be bothered to do anything. Even if there was ice-cream downstairs in the freezer, I might not even be bothered to drag myself downstairs to eat it – or more likely, I would do this, eat a whole tub, and do nothing else constructive for an entire day, and then feel bad at wasting a day….(yes, I love ice-cream, all the more so because these days I make it myself – ha ha!)   The Bible says “The joy of the Lord is your strength!” Nehemiah 8v10.  If you’ve never experienced the joy of the Lord then wow – I wish I could explain to you what you’re missing!  It is as I write this that I realise that the joy of the Lord really does make me strong, in the sense that it fills me with vitality and mental energy – and helps me to be who I want to be, and happy and optimistic about myself and my future!…

Anyway, that was a very long digression!  Coming back now to the topic of this blog post, one of the topics that inevitably made an appearance while I was busy pouring out my heart to God, was unsurprisingly that of Mr Huggie-Wuggie, and the question of why he is not here yet!  And you know what?  Something that struck me, as if for the first time ever, is that I actually do need a husband!  Yes, I actually do need one! And an excellent one at that!  Thus far, I have been telling myself, and expressing on this blog that while important, while an excellent husband is something I want so, so badly, ultimately, I could live without a husband if I had to. And it was as if my eyes finally opened, and I realised that I had been deceiving myself. My goodness, I do need a husband – and it absolutely is a need!  It is precisely because of these big dreams that I have that I need to insist for myself a) on getting a husband  b) that he needs to be excellent – actually I want to say phenomenal and superlative.  A husband of the utmost standard is in no way a luxury for my life, but is rather an utter necessity. And you know what, I am not ashamed of having to say that I need this.

This is very much a new way of thinking for me, as I have always mentally pitched my dreams against my husband, with fears that each might negatively impact on the other, for instance if I made the mistake of marrying a human glass ceiling. I have been working so hard on getting my businesses established, with the thinking that when they are established, then I can set aside some proper time to seriously see to this husband thing… However, it occurred to me (finally!) that a husband, and getting one, is a priority for right now!  Not just when businesses are established but right now! In fact, yesterday!  This is difficult for me, because to me husbands and marriage together equate to getting pregnant and having babies!  I don’t mean that marriage (and sex) are just for procreation.  I know that there are some Christians who think that – I could not disagree more!  What I do mean is that once you’re married, and finally united with your husband body soul and spirit, then getting pregnant is always a possibility – even when you’re trying to avoid it. For me, a business startup environment and young children just don’t mix.  (I know that for many women they do mix, very well in fact.  In fact, this is the reason some women choose entrepreneurship, as a career they can build around their families, controlling their own hours etc as dictated by family needs, as “mompreneurs” (notice the American spelling: “mom”- no prizes for guessing where that concept originated!)) I never want to be in the position of regarding any baby as an inconvenience.  I would always want to throw away my dreams, if necessary, for the sake of putting my family first. And yet my dreams are important to me.  The simple way of dealing with this thus far has been to work on the dreams first before getting married and exposing myself to the possibility of getting pregnant.

And yet now that I have finally acknowledged that a husband is a necessity and is a priority….!  You might say that I could always pray that no baby would show up.  But no, I am not going to do that – so that when God gives me and my husband this amazing blessing of a child I will regard the child as an unanswered prayer?!  Just no!  When, by God’s grace I do get married, I am going to be enthusiastic for the blessings of marriage, and I am going to receive any child that God gives us with delight and excitement and gratitude, the way all children should be received!

Perhaps it is like this: I am going to have to start thinking somewhat creatively about everything!  I have never even considered the mompreneur label for myself, even once,  delighting as I have done in my blissfully free single existence. I have always assumed that I would continue working while bringing up my family, but the difference is that I always imagined that the businesses would already be comfortably established before I started having children. Sincerely, I have been so preoccupied with “my dreams” that I have never really sat down and considered the logistics of how young children would fit into that at all, except that my family has to come first.  But when it has become clear, as it has, that this husband thing is an absolute priority, demanding my determined action and prayers until I am finally joined with an excellent man – what is a girl to do?!  😉

Bible Verses:
Nehemiah 8v10:
…the joy of the Lord is your strength

There is a second part to this post, available here
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PHOTO CREDITS
Photo of father and baby by Vera Kratochvil at http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
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