Shortly after I moved to Arizona, I wrote this song about who my husband will be. Funnily enough, I decided to hop onto dating apps a couple weeks after I wrote this song. Out of boredom and the intention to try to make a new friend, I didn’t hesitate to download dating apps again. Only two, honestly, but two was enough! I started having dreams of a figure taking my songbook and hiding it. I would spend my days thinking, wow I must have written something really valuable if the devil is trying to keep it hidden from me. You know what the worst part is, though? In a way, I allowed the enemy to succeed in this. I forgot about what I had written and started falling back into old habits. I forgot that I wanted to refocus my heart on Jesus. 

I was convicted heavily.
If you’ve never been convicted to the point where your heart feels like a weight about to fall out of your chest and your eyes start to well up, well, friend, I pray one day you will be. I will share with you the words the Lord told me because maybe, if you’re reading this, you need to tell yourself these things too. Maybe you know someone you’ll want to repeat them to. The Lord spoke to my heart:

“You are the daughter of the King. You are my daughter.”
“Those clothes you love to wear, that show off your body, of course you are beautiful in them. When you look at yourself in the mirror with those clothes on, do you see a daughter of the Most High King? If you don’t, then your husband won’t see that either. Get rid of them.”
“Those photos you keep looking at, I know your mind pulls the memories of how great you felt in those moments. However, they remind Me of times you sinned against me. Do you think it’s okay for a daughter of the Most High King to relish in memories filled with sin?”  

I didn’t think it was okay, so I deleted the photos. I realized that the important people in my life exist in photos and memories that don’t include sin. I then purged my closet of dresses that were too short and shirts that were too revealing.

“You read about being a good steward and talk about being a good steward, but in your loneliness you haven’t been. You need to be a doer of the Word and be a good steward of your home and life with just Me in it before I can allow your husband to see you.”
“Let Me prepare your heart for marriage. When you are prepared, I will allow your husband to see you as his wife.” 

I struggled with God on this even in my moment of conviction. He had to give me a few more dreams before I understood. When I got it, I really got it. It was plain as day. I couldn’t believe it took me over a decade to understand that our God, the Almighty and Most High King, holds my heart. If I can’t even listen to the Holy Spirit or follow His Word, how can I expect a man to think that I will respect his convictions and follow his word as my husband? 

The short answer: he won’t.

I prayed for a godly husband since high school (my youth pastor, Liza, can confirm). I honestly thought that as soon as I graduated high school, God would just give me my husband and I would live happily ever after because I was “a good Christian girl”. I didn’t even start dating until I was 19 years old, so naive is an understatement. I thought I knew all the right things but, looking back at the blur of my life, I realize that I never truly took the time to seek out what it means to be a godly woman. It doesn’t stop there. Have I been a godly daughter, sister, or friend? I missed the whole “step 1” and was ready to skip from the prologue to “step 3”. Now I understand that the men in my dating life were not godly men looking for a godly wife. They were hungry men looking to be satiated. This is not to say that they were bad men; I am not degrading the men I have dated and been in relationships with. They were listening to the desires of their flesh, and this is something that we all do (me too!) because we are all human. A godly man chooses Spirit over flesh, though it’s always a choice. A godly man isn’t interested in a woman who keeps choosing flesh over Spirit. In the same way, a godly woman isn’t interested in a man who keeps choosing flesh over Spirit. 

Can you relate? Do you struggle with remembering your identity as a daughter of the Most High King? Be encouraged. When you feel unsure about yourself or your life, remember that we are heirs with Christ! As Paul wrote to Titus: “For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us – not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy – through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out His Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:3-7

You are a daughter of the King! Go celebrate your heavenly inheritance and put behind you the ways of the old.