I wish I could tell you that my hubby and I met in a romantic way. The way that movies and novels depict to us every single day. I am a sucker of rom-coms and a good love drama series. Who is not? I was taught that I should pray specific and heartfelt prayers to the Lord. I did just that in 2009 when I felt HIM encourage me to pray specific prayers for my life. One of those specific prayers was asking God if He has prepared a husband for me? There was a big YES! I was positive that God would do a romantic – Ephesians 3:20 on me. And, He did do an Ephesians 3:20 on me but definitely not a romantic one!
Ephesians 3: 20 The Passion Translation
20 Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination![a] He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
I knew my husband while he was married to his first wife. We were all friends, and believe it or not they (hubby and first wife) were interceding for me to get married. They were praying earnestly that I would meet my Mr. GODLY HUSBAND! They were both certain that the Lord, would lead someone to me.
Little did we all know what God’s plan was for the future? My husband’s first wife transitioned to be with the Lord in December 2010.
During his grieving process, the Lord whispered to him that, I was the prepared wife for the now new season of his life. He said to the Holy Spirit no, it can’t be! I think he wanted to stick to his Zimbabwean sisters!
My husbands prayer time was disturbed that particular morning. He woke up to grab a cup of rooibos tea with his mom. She went to tell him that the Holy Spirit had whispered to her, that he will marry a woman with two kids, either divorced or single. Guess what - I had two kids, never married and I was single for five years!
The Lord bombarded my hubby with confirmation after confirmation until the day he found the courage to drop the bomb shell on me, that I was the wife God had prepared for him.
“What? You must be smoking something” was my initial response. Followed by, “Are you mad?”
He then, audaciously told me that I ought to wait for six months while he grieved his wife of 20 years and he will come back and marry me. “Who do you think you are?” was my next statement. I told him to never contact me again!
Well, I guess when you are committed to what God has placed in your heart, you pursue it and let God be God.
After six months, I knew that He was definitely meant to be my husband. The Holy Spirit spoke clearly to me and asked me to pull out my white covered journal from 2009 - when He had asked me to pray specific prayers. I pulled out the dusty journal and I got the shock of my life. I found the list of non-negotiable characteristics I wrote down in my journal, about my ideal future husband. And Joseph definitely had them and more.
I was in awe! God met every little request.
To top it all off, I had asked God to give me a father and mother-in-law that believe in Jesus because I refused to be fighting with in laws about the truths of the Bible. Listen to this: My in laws got saved in their early twenties and were serving in their local church as pastors.
Love does not always come in a neatly perfect package that you have dreamed of and fantasied about in your life. Our hearts should trust the one who is LOVE and that is Jesus. We are not able to LOVE any person through our human nature. We need Jesus to be able to LOVE our spouses, friends, children, siblings, and anyone that the Lord requires us to love.
Open your heart to Jesus and He will teach you how to love imperfectly yet perfectly through Him. True love is not ROMANTIC but instead SACRIFICIAL; it requires you to give more than you expect continuously.
I am glad that LOVE is not how my fleshy self pictured it; instead how Jesus sacrificially showed me on the cross.
Picture it Jesus’ way!
Love
Lusanda
Lusanda Dhlamini is the Founder of Women of Reverence.
Read her full bio here