Never too high
I remember telling Mom I wanted a guy who'd be sensitive to my feelings and needs, and she said I would wait forever coz guys are not like that. I insisted that there are a few guys like that out there but she replied they were extremely rare and I shouldn't hope for something so impossible. I think I was in college at the time.
Then I read accounts like Mrs Happy's and I'm not sure whether to be happy because it gives me new hope, or to be angry coz everybody has been trying to make me believe that something (or someone) so wonderful doesn't exist in the real world.
Of course every woman wants someone who will treasure her as Mr Happy treasures his Mrs Happy. You don't have to tell me that not every woman ends up with a man like him. I know that. You also don't have to tell me that I probably won't end up with a man like him. Don't you think I'm aware of the odds? I've seen enough men infected with the He-Man Macho Syndrome and watched enough husbands interacting with their wives to know that men like Mr Happy are a rarity.
But I can pray, can't I? And yet when I tell people about the kind of man I'm praying for, they keep cautioning me that there's no perfect man -- as if they don't believe that God can or will give me what I ask for, and they don't want me to be disappointed if my future husband turns out to be a complete boor. "Your standards are too high," they say, meaning that no such person exists on the planet and I am asking for too much.
But is there any such thing as "asking for too much" where God is concerned?
Doesn't the Bible say that God is a loving Father who would not give us a stone if we were to ask for bread, nor give us a snake when we ask for a fish? So why does everybody act as if God's going to give me the exact opposite of what I ask? Like when I say I can't stand a certain characteristic in a guy, and the response is, "You never know, your future husband might just turn out to be like that!" What's that all about?
Besides, I'm not praying for a perfect man. I'm praying for a man who will complement me as I complement him. I'm praying for a man who will be tender and who will honour and cherish me. Considering that the wedding vows say "to love, honour and cherish", I don't know why everyone around me keeps reacting to this as if it were such an alien concept. Even the married people!
But Brooke's words prove that all their strange, warped ideas of God aren't true; God's not going to shove you together with someone you absolutely can't live with and make you miserable for the rest of your married days. I hope I'll one day be able to echo her declaration: "I am in love with a man I didn't ever know how to ask for nor did I ever know how to dream of. My ability to know what I need is long gone and God has blessed me with a man that is more perfect for me than I could have ever known."
It is like that Bible verse that says God is able to do immeasurably (or, as the NKJV puts it, "exceedingly abundantly") more than all we ask or imagine. I want to trust God to give me even more than I can ask for or imagine in a future life partner, instead of fearing that the kind of man I'm praying for doesn't even exist, or that if he does, he would never choose me.
So all you naysayers can just shut up already.