I sat with my friend and trusted mentor and I shared with her how I was struggling with waiting and keeping sexually inactive until after the “I do” with my future husband.  

“It is tough not touching, not letting our kisses and hugs build into more.  I know it is the right thing to do – to wait – but I never anticipated that it would be such a struggle.  It’s different now.  We each have our own homes it is more convenient to be at one or both of our homes. We are adults.  There are no parents there telling us to keep the doors open.   The access we have to each other makes being sexually active before marriage more tempting.  I know I messed up in my first marriage by not waiting – it affected every level of  my marriage.  What do I do?” 

My friend looked at me.  She had been there herself, when she was engaged to a great Christian guy who also loved and treasured her.  She too had a high level of desire for what should be part of “after the ceremony” and not before.   She knew first hand my struggle.   

“Anything good is worth waiting for.   Make your love and marriage great by waiting.” 

She went on to say, “Let God hold you for the next few months and then really enjoy your honeymoon and your marriage.”

 Her words were healing.  She was right.  Among other things, I was afraid of waiting.  Afraid that if I did things the way they should be done and in the order that God designed them, that somehow it wouldn’t be enough…my marriage would still fail and I would be faced with yet an even deeper level of hurt from a second divorce and subjected to even more guilt for what I had brought into my daughter’s life.  

These fears stemmed from the hurt and emotions faced during my divorce, where the only thing I celebrated on a daily basis was a pity party.   

Poor me, poor woman betrayed, left, abandoned, overweight from stress eating,  and on the edge of poverty.  Poor, poor pitiful me.   

Like many women, in the months following my divorce, I imagined that nothing good would ever come my way again.  I imagined that if love somehow did cross my path, I would be lacking in some sort of divine intelligence or intuition and would once again not see clearly the difference between true love with the potential to last a lifetime and what I had experienced the first time around.  

The self-negating comments combined in the underlying sentiment proclaiming me unworthy of love and I was bent on making my self-fulfilling prophecy come true.  

I knew what I wanted, but like countless women before who also had been gifted with a second chance, did not realize fully what my obligation and responsibilities were.  I did not understand how to trust God to meet my needs.  I did not understand how the only way my broken heart would be healed would be to wait on the Lord to renew me.

Psalm 37:4 and 5 says: 

Delight yourself in the LORD
       and he will give you the desires of your heart.  

Commit your way to the LORD;
       trust in him and he will do this: 

I found myself waiting.  I found myself in the arms of a selfless Savior.  When I was lonely, alone in my bed at night, aching for human touch, I found  that God would meet all of my needs in his timing.  And by waiting He would give sweet and still intimacy with Him and I would received so much more than what I could get by my own doing.  

My Lover, My God,

A Selfless Savior.

I wait here by your side.

With precious dreams

I do not waver

In your Grace I abide.

A Promise, A treasure

A gift of beauty

A Husband of great worth

My Birthright of Love

One day you’ll give me,

If I love you first.

Copyright 2001 Wendy M.  Stewart  

By letting God hold us during  times, when we are lonely or desiring of human touch, we find healing for the hurt of a broken past.   By letting God be the Lover of our soul before our husbands, we find hope that reaches beyond our broken lives.   

When we let God rewrite our love stories with His words and His ideas, we let God rebuild us.  When God rebuilds our lives, He gives to us promise and His plan for our prosperity.

When He rewrites our love stories He includes words and deeds that give beauty for ashes and that restore the years that locust have eaten.