Our society is obsessed with the notion of romantic love. Little girls are mesmerized by the Disney princesses who find their Prince Charmings and live happily ever after. By the time they are eleven or twelve they begin to dream of the day when their own Prince Charmings will come along and take them to that magical place where they will always be loved and cherished, and, they, too, will live happily ever after.
I, for one, do not think that waiting for Prince Charming is a bad thing. A young girl should believe that God has made one special man with whom she can happily spend the rest of her life. The problem arises only when she believes that somewhere there exists a man who can fulfill all of her needs. He will always protect her, always take care of her, and always make her feel loved.
As parents, it is our responsibility to teach our little girls that a Christian husband will contribute much to our sense of well-being, but he is not the answer to all of our problems. Unlike the charming princes of the Disney stories, real men have needs too. They sometimes become ill; they sometimes die; they sometimes lose their jobs, and they sometimes lose their tempers. The real-life princess will need to take care of her prince and meet his needs too. When faced with this reality, many women feel cheated and disappointed—not because their husbands are not fulfilling their duties but because they are not fulfilling their wives expectations.
I came face to face with reality soon after I was married. Although I was madly in love with my husband, the lonely void that I had expected him to fill remained empty. I always felt lonely. Whether in a crowd or surrounded by family, I felt an enormous sense of loneliness. As a result, I felt sad a great deal of the time. I did not tell my husband about my feelings because I was afraid that he would think I did not love him or that the sadness and loneliness was somehow his fault, but I was never free from that ache in my heart.
Then, seven years into the marriage, I came to a point where I wanted a change—not a change in my husband—a change in me. I would come home from work every evening and go into our guest bedroom, drop down on my knees and begin to pray. I told God that I felt dead and empty inside. “I want to feel you,” I said. Night after night I prayed that prayer. I longed to feel alive; I longed to feel His presence in my life.
At the end of the summer a man came into our lives who had an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. His name was Ed, and he began to teach us the Bible and tell us how we could come to know Jesus Christ—not just as our Savior but as our friend. John and I spent the next nine months with Ed as our Bible teacher and friend. We were growing and learning, but we were depending on Ed to bring us into fellowship with Jesus so when Ed told us one evening that he was leaving El Paso, we were very upset. We told him that we needed him to continue to work with us, but he replied, “You’re ready to move forward, but if I stay here you will continue to depend on me. I have done what I came here to do, and I have to go.”
Ed was right. When he left, we began to rely on Jesus as never before. I opened my heart, and He came in and filled that void. Since that day I have never been lonely. I have often been without human companionship, but I have never been alone. Whether surrounded by loved ones or shut off from everyone, my heat is filled with the only love that satisfies completely.
We must teach our daughters that Jesus is the only one who never fails us. He never disappoints us; He never forsakes us; He never ceases to love us. A Christian husband is a gift from God, but he is not the answer to the longing of our hearts. Only Jesus Christ can fill that void, and when we open our hearts and invite Him in, we will begin to live happily ever after.
Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.
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