Pray for your children's future mates

I knew before I even met him that I was meeting someone special.  A sorority sister of mine had just broken up with a guy that was too nice to not be snatched up she said.  She wanted me to meet him, to scout him out for a friend on our floor.  I knew I was meeting him for a friend, but for some reason I took out my curling iron and spent just a few minutes on my hair.  I saw him sitting there, on a friends bed turned couch as most dorm rooms happen to function. He had a maroon hat with a curved bill pulled down low.  His cheeks were red and flushed as if he had just run a sprint, though he had only just been sitting there for the past hour.  I was privy to a conversation that he was having about an upcoming fraternity function, though I said not one word to him.  I was taken by him.Several weeks later, he was being chaperoned on our all girls floor by another sorority sister of mine. We had a joint fraternity/sorority themed function the next night and I was trying on clothes, though I was finding {thankfully} that I had nothing in my wardrobe to wear to a pimps and prostitutes party. My sorority sister walked into my room with the dreamy boy I had seen but not talked to and reintroduced us.  All of us had the same party to attend and it was suggested that we head to the local mall and see what we could find.We stood in the rain playing rock paper scissors for the coveted shotgun seat. I was immediately comfortable with him and our conversation was easy and we laughed like old friends. I was anxious to see him at the party the next day.When we did, it was electric.  We didn't leave the others side all evening.  It's been 18 years and I can still remember that night like it was yesterday. 

When I was in high school, I remember a youth pastor telling us to start praying for our future spouse.  It had never occurred to me before, but that night, I did. I started praying for him generally and I prayed for him specifically.  There were character traits I remember praying that I would find.  I would look to the marriages that I admired and I started praying for those things that I saw that I admired.When I started spending more time with him, I realized that this man that I met was fitting into the checklist of those traits that I had been praying for. I was only 18 and it seemed like I had met the man that God had made for me. 

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I look at our children and I see those same rosy cheeks that I remember from our first meeting.  We share the same last name that I read off of his high school wrestling shirt he was wearing the night we went to the mall. We have officially crossed the threshold of being together with one another longer than we have been without one another. Now I pray for my children's spouses.  I know that God has created the perfect mate for each one of them and the reality is, they are out there.  They may be 2,500 miles away the way mine was, but they are out there.  I  pray for their mates in a general way {this is a great resource with ideas}. It's up to each of them to be praying for those specific traits so that when they meet their future spouse there is no doubt in their mind that they have found the one.