Marriage 101: My Journey!

30^th May 2020 we stood in the presence of God and a few witnesses (Covid 19 wedding lol) and exchanged our wedding vows. I have been married for 3 years, 8 months and I am not a marriage expert but I can confidently say that marriage is a gift from God and it is a beautiful journey.

Growing:

Growing up I had two different versions of marriage, the good and the sad. My early childhood days painted a picture of a loving home, I had everything I needed, wanted and anything else in between. I was pretty much a daddy’s girl so life was full of our outdoor adventures and lots of pampering. All was rosy until my dad got retrenched and drowned himself in alcohol thus enter the sad version. Back then, the transition of my first love from who I knew, loved and deeply adored into this furiously raging tornado didn’t make sense to me. I was barely 9 years old when things came crumbling down and it was heart-breaking to say the least which consequently had a major ripple effect on me. It wasn’t until I accepted Christ as my savior and Lord of my life, as a 24 year old, that I was able to put the pieces back together and understand the story.

Dating:

Had I gotten married as an unbeliever, I would have made some terrible choices because I was carrying a lot of baggage from my childhood. I was deeply wounded and would have passed that brokenness to an innocent man, perhaps scarring him along the way, replicating a sad version to our offspring, ultimately spiraling it into a generational pattern of pain and brokenness.

Reflecting on my dating experience and the lessons I picked along the way, I wish I could say I had more positive experiences but truth be told, they were more of mistakes I made, negative experiences which ultimately molded me into who I am. If you don’t know what you stand for, you fall for anything and when you get in a relationship without your values then you naturally adapt to the person you are with, good or bad. This is perhaps the most fundamental lesson I gracefully learnt. I once got into a relationship just to please the person I was with and because I didn’t have set standards, I allowed the other person to set the boundaries and dictate the road we travelled. Well, that was a series of heartbreak. By the time I got out, I didn’t know who I was anymore and instead of taking time to figure out my mess, I plunged deep into another series of flings.

Perhaps if only I grew up with one version of marriage, the happy one, I would have chosen a different path. But then again I doubt I would have emerged as beautifully broken as I am now and I wouldn’t have scars to tell a tale of a loving Heavenly Father who redeems, restores and makes all things beautiful at His own time.

Waiting:

Accepting Christ and being born again was the hallmark of a beautiful love story of this girl, her heavenly father and the lover of her soul, Jesus Christ. A couple of months after I gave my life to Christ, I thought to myself, ‘well, we are done now. I mean, am here, where is the man you promised?’ I viewed God as the giver of good gifts and was completely blinded to the fact that I already had the best gift He could give me; the gift of life and life in abundance, the gift of an eternity with Him. I didn’t think I had to wait, to grow in my walk of faith, to discover who I was, to open up and heal from all the wounds and baggage I had from my past. I thought I had an automatic pass to a dream man. Truth be told if that man had come immediately, I would have been distracted from walking with God and ended up idolizing him then he would have stolen the glory of the restoration process from God.

Am glad that I found my identity in Christ and He became my defining compass. God is your creator and only He knows why He created you the way you are. He placed in each one of us a deep hollow that only He can fill up in an intimate relationship with us. It’s only wise to go back to Him for the revelation of your identity. So many times we try filling that void with people, pleasures, riches and wealth but it is all vanity.

I learned my singleness was not just a waiting season but a growing season and a learning season. A season of growing my intimacy with Christ, learning from the Master and replicating His life to others here on earth. A season of discovering my purpose and the mission God predestined for me, discovering my gifts and talents to use in His field to draw others to God. A season of embracing who I am in Christ and letting that truth radiate to the world like the light that I am.

I truly maximized that season, learning and unlearning, growing and nurturing as I blossomed into the woman God created me to be. I devoted myself to growing in my walk of faith, establishing a firm foundation by enrolling into several discipleship classes as I actively nurtured my personal relationship with Christ. I had to cut off all relationships that were not steering me towards growth and God brought new connections to walk with me and other younger people who I mentored as we all grew in Christ. I loved serving in church under the children’s ministry, pouring out my heart and love to those little ones because I knew not all were coming from happy homes and I could relate, I had learnt to see beyond the little smiles. It is while serving that God gave me my mission, He revealed the blue print of my purpose that I am called to raise up warriors. The transformation was truly amazing: only God can heal your pain and your wounds if you surrender yourself to Him.

My guiding scripture was Isaiah 61:1-3

I am truly glad I surrendered my life to Christ because that was the beginning of a beautiful transformation from a bruised broken reed to an oak of righteousness. To those on this journey of dating/waiting, this is my prayer for you:

I pray you will learn to trust God with all of your heart. Let Him guard your heart until He directs you to the one He will entrust it to.

I pray that you will let Him be your identity and the very core of who you are as He leads you to becoming who He created you to be.

I pray that you will be patient in your wait to avoid compromising or settling for less than what God ordained for you. I pray that you will not compare your journey with others, ending up envious or jealous because they seem to have what you don’t. We are all uniquely called by God and have different yet amazing journeys.

I pray that you will devote your waiting season to knowing your Master, serving and growing deep in Christ. I pray that as you do so, He will reveal to you your Mission and you will pursue purpose relentlessly because the greatest tragedy in life is not death but life without a reason. It is dangerous to be alive and not know why you were given life.

And above all I pray that you will not dwell in the place of your mistakes/failures or shortcomings but you will learn to surrender to Christ because messes in the hands of a Master are always turned into a beautiful masterpiece.

Courting:

After two whole years of being hidden away, the Lord impressed upon my heart that it was time for the next step and boy wasn’t I excited….

To be continued in part 2!