Erin's Top 10 in a Future Husband

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was challenged to write down a list of traits and characteristics I wanted in my future husband. I was told to be specific and to pray specifically. My daughter is in a Christian school, and this last semester in her 7^th grade Bible class they covered LSD – Love, Sex and Dating. Their project was to come up with a top 10 list for their future husband. It was understood that they would be praying for a growing Christian who attended church, so that could not be one of the top ten. I asked Erin if I could share hers. I’ve also made a copy and my mom has a copy to pull out an engagement party or rehearsal dinner. There are things in her list that make me laugh, and there are things on her list that show me that my daughter REALLY knows who she is, and there are things on her list that show me where we need some work. All in all, I think Erin did a great job for a 7^th grader. Enjoy, Erin’s top 10 list:

1. He needs to be pure. If I wait until marriage and I have to go through the hard times of waiting I want to have a husband who waited also, so it will be special on our wedding night.

2. He needs to have a good personality. He needs to be quiet, and patient and willing to listen to my crazy ideas and not think I’m losing it. Also he needs to be calm because I am sort of dramatic. Another thing is he will probably need to know how to put up with my stubbornness. For those who don’t know my sweet Erin, she is quite gregarious, loquacious and funny.

3. He needs to be a good provider and a hard worker. I want to be a stay at home mom, so he will need to be a good provider so we can all eat.  

4. I would like a husband who is affectionate. If I’m sad he will hold me and tell me it is okay, and he won’t make fun of me, if I can’t do something.

5. He should be able to cook. I can’t cook so if he doesn’t want us to live off of fast food and take out it will be good if he can cook. He should be able to cook on a stove, microwave, oven, and grill. This is where we have some work to do.

6. He needs to be protective but not overly protective. Like if someone is saying something mean to me, I would like him to stand up to that person. I would not like him to always ask me where I’m going, like I don’t want him to hang out with me and my friends all the time. He’ll be able to hang out with his friends without me always questioning him, same goes with me.

7. I would like my future husband to love kids. I want to be a mom so my husband will need to like kids, because if he doesn’t like kids he won’t want any.

8. I would like him to be handsome. He will be 5’9, so he will be taller than me but not too tall where I can’t kiss him when we get married. He will not be really skinny but not fat, he will be in the middle. He will have dirty brown hair, and either hazel eyes or blue eye, but if he has blue eyes they have to be as blue as the sky, sky blue eyes. Also he has to have hair that he can flip out of his eyes, but not the Justin Beiber flip; I don’t really like Justin Beiber. He can’t have big feet, but he can’t have small feet either, they have to be just right. Another thing is he has to have perfect hands. They have to fit into mine perfectly. He can’t have sweaty feet or hands, they need to be non sweaty. I think that’s it. This one made me laugh, but I thought the perfect hands to fit into hers was very sweet.

9. I would like him to be educated. I would like him to have a high school degree and a college degree. These are really important to me because I would like him to be smart and get a good job that he got with his college degree.

10.  I would really like it if he could sing, it’s not that big of a deal but it would be nice. So when I’m scared or I’ve had a bad day he could hold me and sing to me.     

Erin and I had talked about these things previously, but I didn’t make her write them down because she isn’t close to dating. She knows that dating means you are looking for the man God has for you to marry and that’s why dating really isn’t appropriate at an early age. We’ve talked about boundaries and respect. Recently, one of her friends who’s a boy told her that he was atheist. She asked me what I thought about that. I told her we are to be the salt and light. We aren’t here to judge and condemn but point others to Christ. The boy told her he didn’t want her to try to convert him. She told him it wasn’t her job, but she did point out some errors in his thinking about God’s Word. The way she handled it opened up further dialogue and now he is interested in coming to church with her. When she and I were talking about this, I asked Erin, “Is this someone you would date?” She thought for a moment, and she said, “No, ma’am. I couldn’t.” She said, “You marry someone you date, and the Bible says that I should not be unequally yoked with a nonbeliever in marriage.”

It’s not just one conversation that helps shape a child and their beliefs. It’s many conversations. It’s conversations from different people. Pray for the people who are influencing your children. Pray for your kids as they begin to make choices that affect their future. Teach them God’s principles, bind them to their hearts. I’m not done with her. I’m not done having conversations and listening to her, and if you are someone who is a godly influence to my daughter or my son, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.