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 7th 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 7th 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.