Marry a boaz, not a bozo
I want to get married so bad. God, aren’t you listening to me? I’m lonely and you said I was supposed to get married again. How come he hasn’t come yet? To say he was miserable was a HUGE understatement. Very few people want something as bad as I wanted a husband.
While waiting I listened to everything. Just be patient, just get your husband out of her mind. When you love God enough, your husband will come. Really? Really, he loves God enough. I thought he had done it. I kept trying to get him out of my mind but I couldn’t. Every Christmas, every Valentine’s Day, every person who got married only made things worse for me. I thought I would NEVER get married again.
To make matters worse, when I was in Bible School I had to write a sermon for the Preaching Lab I was in. I fasted and prayed about what to write and guess what? My sermon was entitled “Why should a person want, desire or seek marriage?” What the hell, Lord, are you kidding me? I really want to get married. Well, I think I want to get married.
At that time I was looking for a physical relationship and financial security. Those two things are not good reasons to push yourself towards marriage. I really wanted to get married again, but I never wanted to get divorced again.
During the 10 years I was waiting to meet my husband. God did some amazing things for me. He healed me from the pain of divorce and the way my ex-husband treated me. I sold myself to the Lord to the point where I actually let it go. Only God helped me to let go because I couldn’t. I decided that if my husband wasn’t going to come, then he was going to have fun and start fulfilling my life’s calling.
In Tulsa there are 50 United Methodist Churches. Most of them are very small and have a very small number of single people. I felt very lonely on Friday and Saturday nights and I thought there were a lot of people like me. I started networking with other churches through their pastors. I created a spreadsheet of email addresses. Every week I would research which church was doing what or which group was doing something and email everyone on my list to let them know what was going on. I was having a great time
This idea grew so much that I found out that a church had a singles summit in October of that year. Here I was sitting at a table with pastors of seniors and singles discussing how to develop the Singles Summit. Sure enough, I met my husband Peter that April. We got married in July, so I never got to go and help create that Summit. I sure hope it went well.
Why am I talking about this? I want to share a few things about my time waiting for my Boaz. The first thing I did was pray and ask the Lord what I should believe in a husband. I needed a list of what to expect. God gave me my list. A man who loves me like Christ loves the church, tither, giver, 100x giver, loves God more than me, is a godly example of a man to my son and we are compatible socially, sexually and with the church. You may notice that I didn’t ask anything about looks or money. I knew those things would be fixed because women need security.
I prayed for him every day. As she waits for his spouse to come into his life, she prays for them. They are alive and well on earth somewhere. God knows his name, even if you don’t.
Become the person God wants you to be. Be the best person you can be. Sell yourself to God and start working in the ministry to which God has called you. You don’t have to wait until you have your spouse to do what God wants you to do.
Don’t settle for just anyone, expect the best from God. Believe me I wanted to settle, out of desperation, many times. Every time he prayed and asked God if this was can I have them? The Lord would say what on your list do you want to give up? I said, “I want them all.” His response, “then he’s not.”
If he tries to grope you on your first date, run for the hills, he’s acting like a Bozo and not a Boaz. A Boaz will be respectful, kind and loving. If he doesn’t have a job (he claims he’s between jobs), he doesn’t have a car and a bank account, then he runs to the mountains. You don’t want to support someone. See how they treat their parents, wait for people in restaurants, how they behave in church. See it even before you start giving your heart away.
Your spouse is out there, but remember this: IT’S BETTER TO BE ALONE THAN MARRIED AND ALONE!