As a young girl l always had a
strong desire to be found by a husband and so did my friends. Though we didn't
discuss it in mixed company, we talked about it a lot. Contrary to what some
girls would have you believe of them, it was probably the subject we thought
and talked about most.
Back when we were young and we
had just discovered that we were no longer children – when the hormones in our
bodies started playing tricks on us, people used to get married in their teens
or their late teens. That was probably before all the ‘save-the-girl-child
campaigns’ gained roots almost everywhere.
We all admitted that our deepest
longing, even more than career success, was to be found by that one tall, dark
and handsome man that would say, ‘you are the bone from my bone.’ Personally, I
looked forward to the day I would become
someone’s wife and a mother. This I believe was and still is a natural feeling,
because God made it that way; a natural and wonderful feeling to yearn for companionship
and to be in love.
Fast forward to today, some of
us cannot bear a visit to the village because of the comments we get from well
meaning family members and friends who seem to wonder why we are yet to take a
man to our parents.
There is a high number of women
who want to get married as soon as possible, and most of us ladies now sit
around a coffee table sharing our litany of woes, and bemoaning how most of our
male friends were either not marriage material or already taken. We try to hang
on to hope as birthdays come and go. With most of us now educated, and with
successful careers, we'd often wonder if, in the midst of our clumsy attempts
at love, we weren't making matters worse by getting our master's degrees first.
Especially for a successful, born again, sanctified, Spirit filled, water
baptized, and demon casting sisters,
commitment in relationships and marriage can sometimes seem far off the radar. Some
are prepared to give it all up — the career, the big salary, the trappings of
success — should the right man come along. But the men in our lives don't know
we feel that way. What if, we worry, we finally meet someone and he interprets
our ambition the wrong way?
That's how the idea of writing
this book came about. I realized I needed to be brutally honest with myself at
a very personal level. I started by initiating conversations about marriage
among my friends — not as it relates to me and the guy am interested in
specifically, but generally, the same way one would have a group discussion about politics or
religion. I didn't shy away from other tough subjects when we were together; so
why not bring up something even more important?
It really came down to one word:
intentionality. Modern women are known for high achievement in every area but
the one we say we value the most: relationships. Sadly, we're members of a
generation which on the whole, desires marriage, but doesn't know how to get
there or believes there's no rush to make it happen.
When it comes to committed
relationships, we tend to be drifters –not having a set purpose of specific
expectation in that relationship. I know I was. I spent nearly a year as so-and-so’s
buddy. It took me a long time to finally ask for something more.
It turns out there are things
you can do to move a relationship forward. But you have to know what not
to do first. I welcome everyone to journey with me, and enjoy reading this
book, and hopefully we will see where we went wrong and what we can do about it
before it is too late. May it leave you with an expanded mind and an open eye,
so that you may be able to be awakened to the promise of the bounty that God
intended us to have when He saw that it was alright for Adam to have Eve, and
for Eve to have Adam.
Please be warned that this book has been based on generalization so
there obviously are a few exceptions and as such, if anyone would protest some
points, it is understandable.
