leather journals & the hope for romance

I stopped writing letters to my future husband. For this specific purpose, I had bought a beautiful leather journal with hand-torn pages, a leather string delicately wrapped around it. Now it will probably just be a songwriting journal I suppose.

I used to be an advocate for writing to your future husband. I thought it would help a woman keep herself pure for her husband, reminding herself that whether she is single or in a relationship, her future husband is a real person, somewhere out there in the world, even if she can't see him, (if not the man she is with now), and out of love, she could remain faithful to him "all the days of her life" (Proverbs 31:12).

A reminder that, on the chance that the man she is with now doesn't become her husband, becoming too physically involved with him could harm her relationship with the man who would be her husband. A reminder that, if pornography or masturbation were a struggle for her, every time she engages in it affects the purity of the relationship she may have with her future husband. A reminder that, in her singleness, the man who may one day read her letters is worth the wait. A reminder to pray for him, wait for him and surrender her hope for him to God.

I've been writing letters since my 13th birthday, but only from time to time. To be completely honest, I don't know if it has helped me or harmed me. I believe I started doing it because I thought it was romantic, nothing else.

And it may work for some women. But for me, for whom romance has become an obsession in my life (see my previous post), it only further centers my life around this hope for a man someday. Staring at this journal in which I still had many pages to fill, it became this obligation on my part to have to think of him, have to write to him, have to pray for him, have to wait for him, have to keep my eyes out for him.

But what if I'm one of the few God does not have a husband for? While getting married is a strong desire of mine, I want to get to a point where if God wanted me to be single all my life, I would not just be okay. I would be thriving. Not settling for the scraps of what God has happened to give me, but fully embracing the blessed life He has chosen for me. Romance can't be the focus of my life.

So this girl is taking steps to get to that point. And that means letting go of this romantic ideal of writing letters to my future husband. If a special moment comes and I feel compelled to write a letter here and there, then sure, I will. But not in this journal with pages waiting to be written on, calling me to think of romance once again. Let it be spontaneous, let it be at a God-given moment, and let it be in His time -- it's always more romantic that way anyway!

 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

(Song of Solomon 8:4)