Those “God Brought Me My Spouse” Stories – Woman Says God Brought Her A Spouse on the Beach
I’m really not supportive of these types of stories, the type that you see below.
When I was a teen and in my 20s, I would read Christian books and magazine articles. Every so often, I’d see an author claim that God answered her prayers by sending her a Christian spouse.
Now that I’m in my 40s and still not married – in spite of having faith and praying since youth that God would send me a great guy – I think these stories are fanciful and that they are aberrations.
I’m leaning more towards the opinion now that if you want to get married, it’s up to you to make it happen – by going to bars, asking friends to fix you up, going on dating sites – rather than expecting God to make it happen.
So, I find stories like the ones below misleading.
(Link): Chance meeting on beach leads to marriage with godly man
Thirty-four years ago this month, I was fresh out of college and earnestly seeking God’s will in my life. My heart was hungry for a godly man of outstanding character.
And though I had decided that compromise in this most critical of relationships was not an option, I was beginning to doubt whether a man of that quality could possibly exist, or if I would ever find him.
Little did I know that God already had set his answer to my prayers into motion.
I can still feel the heart-pounding, inexplicable attraction that took me by surprise when I met Andy in July 1983. When I close my eyes, I see him standing on the boardwalk along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
…On the trip of a lifetime to Israel, I was part of a delegation of five college Democrats and five Republicans
…But the most important person I met was a young U.S. naval lieutenant who “just happened” to be on the same stretch of beach as I was, during the same five-minute period, in a country halfway around the world.
….Andy returned to the States that Thanksgiving, and we were wed the next year on Thanksgiving weekend. He is my handsome prince, my knight in shining armor, my spiritual confidant and my best friend.
Thank you, God, that you are always working in the background when we earnestly seek your face.
/// end story
Hmm. So, God sent her a spouse in Israel (they later kept in touch through mail) but this same God can’t get off his ass and send me a spouse in the United States? This doesn’t make any sense.
Is this woman more deserving of a spouse than I am? I think not.
How about this Christian woman (source):
Sally met Peter when she was in her mid-30s, and had been praying for a husband. She wasn’t instantly attracted to him but was charmed by the deluge of flowers and love letters he sent. She grew to believe she was meant to be with him.
….Peter’s personality changed on the first day of their honeymoon, when he yelled at her for sleeping in, and made plans to go fishing for days without her.
…The abuse quickly escalated as Peter drank, gambled and demanded sex every second night, usually after having yelled at her for hours.
She later wrote in a statement prepared for court: “If I refused, he would become incandescent with rage. It was easier to give in than argue. Those nights I felt that I was almost being raped.”
Once he forced her to have sex just three weeks after giving birth.
Sally found little comfort in her Pentecostal church, which she had turned to repeatedly. Counsellors there simply advised her to forgive him. She also told her pastor her story, but no one followed it up.
The violence mounted until one day her husband threw their three-year-old daughter across the room after the toddler accidentally bumped his leg.
When she left Peter, Sally also left her church parish, feeling isolated and unwanted as a single mother.
Ten years later, she is still shattered.
/// end story
How about this Christian woman:
by L. Little, July 2017
The wife of a radical Australian preacher has broken her silence for the first time on the horrific abuse she suffered for years at the hands of her cruel husband.
…Speaking in a 60 Minutes exclusive, the Cairns grandmother said she had been raped up to seven time a day by her husband, Pastor Larry Harris.
“He thought the more times a day he could have it, the more of a man he was. He would get up to 6, 7 times a day and he didn’t care if it caused me pain,” she told reporter Liam Bartlett.
/// end story
How is it that these last two women prayed for a “godly” husband, but they ended up with abusive Christian jerks for husbands?
Why does the woman in the first link get a husband at all, and one who is okay, but the other two prayed and got jerks, and I prayed for years and got squat?
All of this reminds me of this post:
(Link): Stop Believing God Told You to Marry Your Spouse by G. Thomas
If Christians are going to continue on with the “God sent me my spouse” logic, they need to be honest and say, “But God failed you, because in spite of your faith and years or praying, God did not send you a spouse.”
Because you have to explain how so many Christians who spent years waiting, praying, and having faith for a spouse, are never-the-less “spouse-less.”
And, no: I do not have a ‘gift of singleness.’
I now question these few number of stories I’ve seen over the years – and they’ve all been by women, that I can recall – where they claim that their meeting with their “husband- to- be” was so very weird or miraculous, there’s no way it was just chance or serendipity, but had to be the hand of God.
I hate to break it to them, but I now think their chance encounter with their spouse to be was just that – luck, chance. Not providence, not due to God.
Related:
(Link): I Called Off My Engagement. I Didn’t Feel God’s Peace. by L. Wilbert
(Link): Joanne The Widow Lady Wants to Know Why God Didn’t Answer Her Prayer to Keep her Husband With Her
(Link): I Married Young. I Was Widowed Young. I Never Want A Long-Term Partner Again by R. Woolf
(Link): Stop Believing God Told You to Marry Your Spouse by G. Thomas
(Link): Depressing Testimony: “I Was A Stripper but Jesus Sent Me A Great Christian Husband”
(Link): Single Woman Meets Stalker Guy at Church – letter to “Ask Amy” Advice Columnist
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