Dear beautiful young Christian woman,
You have my heart, you know? You feel a rush of joy in your soul and a knot in your stomach as you look across the horizon of your twenties and soon-to-come-thirties. You wait in expectation and with high hopes for the future and for good things to come.
And I’ve not met a one of you yet who’s not a little anxious to meet Mr. Right. Most of you shyly grin that, although you have lots of public goals and after-high-school dreams and post-college-ambitions, your BIG dream is to meet the right man. Someday be a wife. Someday have a little house. Someday be a mom.
Whether or not God will make you a wife, put you in a little house with a white picket fence, and give you children is a future that only He knows.
But while I could write a book on serving God in the right now with the devotion and passion that only a single Christian woman is capable of, I want to let you in on a little secret — your beautiful dream was my dream, too. And your dream has been the dream of most women who met and fell head over heels for Mr. Right. Your mom. Your grandmother. And women for centuries before you.
Your desire is good and precious and holy and right and pure. Thank you for loving a dream that is so God-given — a dream of a life that is a gracious picture of the love of a perfect God for His people.
Being a mom to a son, I have a special place in my heart that cries out for young men to find godly Christian women. However, my words today are really much more about the young man that you will meet and love rather than about the young woman that he is pursuing and you are becoming.
These words today are for you, young single woman. Today I’m writing because I want to help you to love and be loved by the right man.
Beautiful girl, the culture around you tells you that you deserve, need, and have earned some r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
Well, the culture is shallow. The culture is warped and needy and confused. The culture that you think demands respect and admiration for women is really just in need of a Savior, because this culture is selfish, wicked, and horrible to women. Drop the culture’s standards like I’d tell you to drop a man who shows you no respect.
Although it’s not really about you.
It’s not about what you deserve, what you’ve earned, or your rights as a woman. I want to lead you far away from the spotlight that the world encourages you to cast onto your own self.
It’s about God.
The fact is, God has put this beautiful dream and desire in your heart. And I want to encourage you now to pursue God’s standards and God’s design for your beautiful dream.
I’m not so worried about whether or not Mr. Right shows you some r-e-s-p-e-c-t. I’m a whole lot more concerned about whether or not Mr. Right shows God some f-e-a-r. The whole r-e-s-p-e-c-t thing is a “given” if he has a true f-e-a-r of God.
I know you think that 18 or 21 or 27 feels old. It’s not old, but it does feel old when you’re single and alone and wonder what the rest of your life will look like. But a man who fears God is worth waiting for, and serving God by honoring His standards is more important than snagging a diamond to slide over your bare finger.
Do you want a man who takes your “no” seriously because he respects YOU? Do you want a man who can’t resist your beautiful curves and lovely body, but stops when he has to because YOU are the buck-stops-with-me-and-I-demand-r-e-s-p-e-c-t-because-I’m-a-woman?
You precious child of God, wait for the man who fears God and shows respect for the word and will of God. A man who is willing to “get away with” anything YOU allow him to do doesn’t have his eyes fixed on Jesus and the beauty of marriage and intimate one-flesh-love — no, he has his eyes fixed on himself and what his own flesh craves.
A man who fears God can’t wait to love a woman who fears God, too. A man who fears God loves you so much that he is passionate about guarding your purity and body and heart until God joins you in marriage and declares for you two lovers to drink and imbibe deeply.
A man who fears God does things God’s way. Not because you demand some kind of culturally-acceptable r-e-s-p-e-c-t and push his hand back into his own lap. Not because he’s just got to wait a little longer until the wedding band has replaced your purity ring.
No, that man fears God with a reverence and respect that the culture around you can never understand and wouldn’t know how to demand.
That man fears God because God has done a work in his heart that no demand from the culture or pressure from the girl he loves could ever do. That man is a holy man, not because YOU require it of him, but because the God he fears has made him holy and requires of him a holy life and love.
And so, my beautiful young friend, rather than demanding some r-e-s-p-e-c-t because it’s what the culture allows you to demand, raise your standards.
Wait for the man who loves and cherishes God. And because of his f-e-a-r of God, he will know how to l-o-v-e you.
“The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments…” Ecclesiastes 12:13
This article was originally published at Embracing Marriage.
Links and Resources
..The True Woman blog, a ministry of Revive Our Hearts, contains numerous encouraging resources for the young single woman.
..I’ve created a list of resources for the single Christian woman at Bless Your Heart and Home’s Amazon Store. What favorites would you add??
(Bless Your Heart and Home is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com)
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