Marriage is a beautiful covenant ordained by God to be endured during our time here on earth. The idea of discovering your ‘prince charming’ or ‘knight in shining armour’ and spend the rest of your life with them is almost every girl’s dream. However, marriage is not a fairy-tale, and neither is ‘the one’ God has prepared for us. Far too often do ladies feel deceived or disappointed some years in to their marriages, and this is probably due to the ideology of completion after having found ‘the one’ and living your ‘happily ever after’ in marriage. Well, I’m sorry to break the news to you ladies but neither marriage nor the person that God has prepared for you, will make you feel complete or lead to your ‘happily ever after’ in life.
You will have many expectations of your partner within marriage, and this is natural. We have expectations in our fellow friendships and relationships as well. However, always remember that your spouse is not meant to satisfy all your needs, neither will he be your genie in a bottle within marriage. We are incomplete as individuals and our partners can only compliment us. God on the other hand does complete us. We only find our sense of completeness and ‘happily ever after’ when we find and abide in God. Not feeling a sense of completion and happiness within your relationship with God as a single person, will not change when you find and settle down with the man God has prepared for you.
Mark 10:8 states “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Many misinterpret becoming ‘one flesh’ as becoming whole. However, this is not true. Becoming ‘one flesh’, in my interpretation, suggests that the two individuals will come together to become ONE TEAM. It is no longer I, it is we. It is no longer “my” happiness or “my” money, but our money and our happiness. Becoming one flesh is more than meeting expectations and making each other happy. Becoming one flesh in marriage suggests emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically serving, supporting, submitting and sacrificing to one another.
When two individuals come together to become one team, they are still two individuals who have been brought up in two different ways, from two different backgrounds, in two different homes. Due to these different influences, there will definitely be times whereby two married individuals will clash and not meet eye to eye. Therefore, build a fulfilling and joyful marriage by placing God at the centre of this. John 14:4 says “but whoever drinks of the water that ‘I’ will give him shall never thirst”. There is something indescribable about the water that Jesus provides. His Word and presence gives inner peace, inner joy and inner understanding which no man can replace.
As a newly wedded wife, this verse consistently reminds me that it is only Jesus that can quench my thirst. Now as I meditate on His word, and speak to Him daily, it is only Him that has been able to quench the thirst in marriage as well. Therefore, to the single ladies, set a long-lasting foundation in your (soon to be) marriages and remember to establish an abiding relationship with God. A relationship whereby the only man that can make or shake your happiness in your single season, is Jesus Christ.
And lastly, to the wives, always remember that your husband can and will not meet your every expectation. He will not be able to solve all your problems, provide your endless needs and fix all your emotional pains that life throws you in difficult seasons, and that’s okay. He is not meant to. This is why it comes with great importance to build your marriage on our Creator, Jesus Christ. The Person who knows you from within and will be the Rock you can rely on in all seasons.
God bless,
Vanessa Boamah
Guest Writer
The Purpose Wife 