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Future Husband Letters
I wrote my very first “Dear Future Husband Letter” on July 19, 2008. I was working as a single missionary at the time, living at an orphanage in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
It was a Saturday and I was feeling even more alone and discouraged than usual that day.
I was all alone in the house and feeling much too depressed to do much of anything. Feeling desperate for some “company”, I pulled out my journal and began to read different dialogues I had recorded, and recounting the different events in the past.
Somehow reading about the different encounters I had with different people made me feel a little less lonesome. It was like bringing each person into the room for a few minutes and reliving the moments spent with them.
I read my different journal entries for quite a long time, but after a while I noticed myself beginning to feel a little ashamed of myself.
This stage in my life had seen a rise in the amount of “guy interactions” I had encountered. It seemed rather ironic, though, considering we were living on the back of mountain, in the middle of nowhere.
When I came to Sierra Leone as a single missionary I felt in a lot of ways as though I were throwing out all my chances for marriage. That tends to be the way it goes for most single women who go out on the mission field, and I had no reason to believe it would be any different for me – especially considering how remote it was where I was going to serve.
We did not get a lot of visitors or company at the orphanage. There was only myself and one other woman on staff, and when I wasn’t working with the kids I actually spent much of my time by on my own.
So, as I read through the entries of my journal, it seemed rather ironic to realize just how much “guy interaction” I had had, in spite of all the odds against it.
The struggle for me, however, came with the realization that all these interactions were very brief. That all the guys in my life that I would meet or interact with were all so “transient”.
And that is how, in reading the entries, I came to feel ashamed of myself. I was so starved for friends and so wanting for companionship that I hadn’t been as careful with my heart as I should have been.
When I guy would come along (and most often it was a guy – we very seldom had any lady visitors) I was quick to make friends and not very careful about guarding my emotions. I’d end up with a silly crush and then before long they would leave and I would be left feeling even more miserable than usual.
So yes, I felt ashamed of myself. Ashamed that I was not doing a better job of guarding my heart and my emotions for the one God had for me.
But even if I were to remain single all my life . . . even if there wasn’t a man out there for me . . . I was okay with that. I knew that there would be no regrets in doing what was right.
So, with a new rise in my convictions, I pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write the first of many letters addressed to my Future Husband.
Click Here to Read Complete Letter
I continued to write letters to my future husband, compiling them all into a single notebook. I found them to be very helpful in keeping things in perspective for me. In some ways I felt like it held me accountable in any future encounters I had with guys. In other ways it made me feel hopeful, and made it feel more real to me that somewhere out in the world there was a man who God intended for me, and he would be well worth the wait – however long that may be.
I wrote letters to my future husband during the period of singleness.
I wrote him letters as I was reacquainted with an old friend and began wondering if he might be the one I was to marry.
I continued to write the future husband letters after a painful breakup and the period of loneliness that followed.
I continued writing even after getting back together and beginning and “official courtship” with the guy.
And even when we got engaged and I finally knew for sure who it was that these letters were intended for . . . I still continued writing and kept them a secret from him right up until the day we got married.
The very last letter I wrote to my “Future Husband” was a copy of the wedding vows I was to read in church that afternoon . . . the promises I was to make before him in the presence of witnesses.
And that evening, after the ceremony, after the reception, after all the excitement of the wedding . . . when we were finally alone together as a newly married couple, I presented him with a gift . . . the notebook that contained all the letters that were now his to keep.
It was, by far, the best wedding gift that I could have given him. And he was very, deeply touched!
I watched him over the course of several months, working through that notebook and reading each and every entry.
It was a large book . . . over 270 pages . . . but he read every single one!
That was extremely rewarding to me. I felt, in many ways, as though his reading of
these letters was filling up a void within me. That each of those moments in the
past that I had been alone, wishing for someone special to share the moment with
. . . as he read the letters I felt like we were re-
What’s more. I found that writing these letters gave me a stronger foundation as I entered life as a married woman. On our wedding day I had promised to be true and faithful to him, and I had no fear in making such a promise. God had already helped me to be true and faithful to him, keeping myself for him until our wedding day. And the writing of these letters had already ingrained in my heart the habits of taking captive my thoughts and being faithful to him in every aspect of my life.
I do not want to recommend that every young girl do as I have done, but I hope they might at least consider the benefits to making their future husband a real person in their mind – not giving in to romantic fantasies or girlish daydreams, but actually coming to grips with the fact that at this very moment, somewhere in the world right now, there is a man who God has chosen for you. He’s real. And he’s worth waiting for.
Do what you need to in order to guard your heart and your emotions and keep yourself completely for him.
