We Are Becoming The Men We Wanted To Marry!

Earlier today, my phone reminded me that a boy I went to Sunday School with is celebrating his birthday.

All thanks to an annoying feature that synchronises my phone with my Facebook calendar, which constantly bombards me with at least fifteen notifications of people’s birth dates every single day.

The minute his name flashed as a pop up reminder on my screen, memories of our childhood instantly flooded my mind.

He’s probably the only boy, I’ve ever fantasized about marrying.

I don’t really remember him being anything special but because I was already well versed of my place in society as a christian girl, I dutifully allocated my future self under his ‘leadership’ believing that to be worth anything, I had to give ownership of myself over to a man.

His family relocated and I soon forgot about my little aspirations of being his future wife, even though the gruesome & relentless grooming continued on all sides, both in church and at home.

I grew older and quickly realized that every thing we are taught about ourselves is a lie we have to prove wrong.

One day on a walk back from church with a close friend, I had an epiphany and I quickly shared it with her.

‘I think God brings all these awesome men in our lives to inspire us to be great but because of how we are brought up, we misunderstand it and think they’re meant to be our husbands instead, when we’re actually meant to be giants just like them.’

There was more I wanted to say, so I kept going ‘I think when we meet a man we admire, what initially attracts us to him are all the trapped & unexplored ambitions that want to be set free. We are becoming sell outs, we are doing a grave injustice to our greatness and one day we will answer to God for it. We joke that we want to marry presidents but what if we are meant to be the presidents?’

I remember her slowly nodding in agreement, allowing my undomesticated thoughts to slowly sink in and find a home on her mind as well. I don’t really recall what direction the conversation took after that. But I know it challenged me to see, imagine and think of myself beyond the boundaries that I was always kept behind.

If I saw a man teaching in a way that blessed and inspired me, I prayed to God for the same anointing, I believed what He could do in a man, He could do for me too. My prayers were humble but filled with strong conviction. I stopped seeing myself as less than to the opposite sex. I stopped asking for permission and needing their validation.

Marriage stopped being an achievement I wanted to acquire because I started becoming everything I wanted in a husband. If ever I would marry, it would be for companionship, deep love and mutual respect and not because he’s everything I want to be.

Have you become the men you wanted to marry?

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Blog Title is a quote by: Gloria Stenheim

Photo by: Lonwabo Zimela