Why I Desire To Be Married

I’m going to be honest with you. I did not want to write this blog, at first. Why? Honestly I believe that so many Christian women are more obsessed with the idea of marriage than they are with Jesus Christ. It’s all they think and talk about; meanwhile their “Adam” is nowhere to be found. Their motives may have started out pure but somewhere along the way they began to make marriage an idol, which led to discontentment, bitterness, frustration, and a missed opportunity of growth. I have met women who think that once they get saved, God will bring them their husband right away and then life will be perfect. First of all, if you are striving to be a godly wife there are some things you need to focus on like developing a strong prayer life, submitting to God, learning to hear His voice, passing some tests, letting go of the pain from your past, and becoming whole in Christ, just to name a few. As women we should be reading the Bible DAILY and studying it for ourselves, and not just depending on man to always spoon-feed us.  Secondly, marriage is not a reward for good behavior; it’s a gift that God can freely give to anyone He chooses. Lastly, a husband will not make your life “perfect” and he definitely cannot save you. If you don’t first allow Jesus to be the obsession of your heart, you will not know how to properly submit, respect, help, or love a man the way God intends. 

As women our lives have so much purpose whether we are single, courting, engaged, or married. There’s nothing wrong with desiring a husband (so glad The Lord showed me this). We are literally wired to have a desire to be a wife and mother, but we must be careful to not let those desires consume us. 

If you had me asked me when I was in high school why I wanted to get married it probably would have centered around something superficial like I want someone to cuddle with, buy me stuff, and make me feel special. If you had asked me when I was in college why I wanted to get married I probably would have mentioned so that I could have someone carry my bags, tell me they love me, take me out on dates, and support me. If you had asked me right after I graduated college in 2011, I probably would have mentioned so that I could start a family, have someone to pay my bills, and wouldn’t feel lonely. Basically almost all of my intentions for marriage were selfish. I was super INDEPENDENT and only wanted a guy to do things that I couldn’t do for myself. I’m so glad that God did not allow for me to get married, during any of those time periods. It would have ended in disaster, because I would have been looking for fulfillment in another human being that can only come from Christ. The purpose of marriage is so much bigger than having cute children, a nice house, your voids filled, or someone to do stuff for you. 

Thankfully, over the past few years, The Lord has completely changed my desire and reasoning for wanting to be married and truly renewed my mind. Through studying of Scripture, prayer, talking to older and wiser women, listening to sermons, and reading books on Biblical Womanhood I’ve discovered there is literally a purpose for us women as wives and mothers. So now that God has given me a new viewpoint, I’m going to share with you just a few reasons why I want to be married. They are in no particular order, nor a complete list. Ready, set, here we go! 

  
1.     To Be A Helpmeet

 Genesis 2:18 “Then The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 
  

As a wife, the main purpose is to help your husband fulfill the mission that God has given him. I fully recognize that once I say “I do” I will be on a full assignment from God to help my husband. I will get to serve him and that excites me. You may be like really Cierra? You are excited to serve? Yes! You see I have been praying for years for God to give me a servant’s heart, and the idea of being to help another person achieve all God has called them to, is amazing. Granted I strive to do that now, with those who God has placed around me, but knowing that God has literally designed and wired me to directly fill in the parts he is missing brings me joy.

  
2.     To Have Children & Raise Them In The Lord

 Genesis 9:1 “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth.”

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Psalm 127:3 “Children are a gift from The Lord; they are a reward from Him.”

I know that The Lord has called me to be a mom and raise my kids. I used to be so self-centered and say stuff like “I don’t want to ruin my body.” Now I want a whole tribe of kids (a minimum of 4) running around. I want to home-school and be a stay at home mom.  This is nothing but The Lord’s doing. When I tell people about my desire to raise so many kids they think I’m crazy, but I know that this is God’s will. The “old me” would have never said stuff like this. The Lord has truly given me a heart to want to educate, guide, nurture, discipline, and teach children. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy but He will grace me for such a task, and it will be worth it. I’m already praying that my kids will be prayer warriors, win souls to Christ, and help advance God’s Kingdom. I want to have a lineage that will impact future generations by spreading the Gospel through their particular gifts and talents. 

 3.     To Be Sanctified

 Ephesians 6:25-27 “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.”

I have been single for awhile and it’s so easy for me to be selfish, at times. I live by myself now too and so I do things when I want to. Truth be told, on any given day, if I didn’t want to clean, cook, get dressed, or do laundry I wouldn’t have to (although God is dealing with me on this). I fully expect that marriage is going to show me that I’m not as patient, selfless, loving, etc. as I currently think. It’s so easy to be loving, kind, gentle, patient, giving, etc. when you get to go home and be by yourself; when you have an opportunity to get away from everyone else. That will not be the case in marriage and I know I need that type of chiseling and accountability.  I’ve gotten to a point in my walk with Christ where I need someone to be pointing out those little and big imperfections that I may or may not be aware of. I need that “mirror” to show me the error of my ways so that I may repent and be conformed more to the image of Christ. God uses marriage as a tool for sanctification and you have no choice but to change. I don’t believe in divorce, so when I say “I do” we are going to be committed to honoring that commitment until the day we die. I want to be more holy and I recognize that marriage is just one of many means, to accomplish that. 

  
4.     To Fulfill My Purpose On This Earth.

 Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”
 

Let me be clear. The Lord has already begun preparing me to walk into my full purpose, so I’m by no means sitting around waiting for my husband, to get busy about the things of God. I know that I have a purpose right now to fulfill. So I’m currently serving in several positions at my church, working on perfecting the skills & talents He has given me, working a full-time job, and developing new skills, amongst other things. At the same time, He has made it very clear that my future husband and I will do ministry together and that we are both being prepared separately for what we will endure and accomplish together.  The simple fact that God even wants to use me, both now and in the future with my husband, is mind boggling. I am a nobody, who is a somebody through Him. I can’t wait to see how God uses us to reach this dying world. 

It’s crazy for me to look at the above and truly be able to say that every statement is true. I’m amazed at how much God has changed my heart. I went from wanting to be served to wanting to serve. Anything else that comes as a byproduct of marriage will be an extra bonus, because these truly are some of the reasons I get excited, when I think about marriage. I don’t live in a fantasy world though. Marriage requires WORK! I fully recognize that my future marriage is not going to “perfect” and I don’t expect my future husband to be perfect.  I will probably want to give up at times, be frustrated, annoyed, etc. but in the end, it will all be to make me more like Christ and the woman that He intends for me to be.

I pray that you take some time to truly seek The Lord’s will for your life and ask The Holy Spirit to teach you what it means to be a Biblical woman. Not all of us are called to be married and we need to be okay with that truth. Whether you get married or not, as a Christian woman, it’s super important to understand your role and Biblical womanhood. Although God has made it very clear that it is His will for me to be married one day, I can truthfully say that I’m at a point in my walk with Him, where He is truly enough.  My future husband will not complete me, but instead complement me.  Jesus is my heart’s obsession and is the only one who can truly satisfy every desire and longing in my heart. Ladies, let’s set out to seek God for Him and not His gifts. Yes, His gifts flow freely when we seek Him first, but I pray that our motives will be and remain pure! Our main purpose in life should not be to hear a man say, "I do," but to hear our Abba Father say, "Well done, thy good and faithful servant."

Here’s a short list of some of the books I have read:

1. Set-Apart Femininity by Leslie Ludy
2. A Woman After God’s Own Heart by Elizabeth George
3. Let Me Be A Woman by Elisabeth Elliott
4. The Power of A Praying Woman  by Stormie Omartian
5. Preparing To Be A Helpmeet  by Debi Pearl
6. For Women Only by Gigi Graham Tchividjian

Until Next Time,

Cierra 

P.s. As always feel free to email me at cierracotton@gmail.com and/or follow me on Instagram at lovepeacejoy_1 or on Facebook. God Bless you!!!