An Apple for the Road: Wisdom for Life by Bill Johnson

Author:Bill Johnson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, Spiritual Growth, Pentecostal & Charismatic, Christianity
ISBN: 9780768488289
Publisher: Destiny Image, Incorporated
Published: 2012-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Letters From a Shoebox

by Stefanie Overstreet

November 9, 1997 Entry Dear Future Husband,

Hi, I keep wondering who you are, where you are in the present, what you look like, and if I know you now. I look forward to meeting you so much....

My journey in preparing for marriage began with these lines in my 12-year-old scrawl on a sheet of notebook paper. This was the first letter I wrote to my future husband. After a childhood of loving fairy tales and dressing up as a princess, I was already dreaming of who I would marry in my God-given beautiful love story. I decided to start writing letters to channel my curiosity and record thoughts I wanted to someday share with him. My romantic pre-teen heart also loved the idea of surprising my husband on our wedding day with a stack of letters I had been writing and saving for years in a shoebox under my bed.

At the time when I wrote the first letter, I was attending a girls’ discipleship group that taught me how to value myself and what healthy relationships look like. That group also helped me set a foundation for qualities I would look for in a spouse. Maybe it was because I was mature for my age, but I developed a desire to navigate the years before I met my spouse with few regrets. It was important to me to save myself, not just in body, but also my heart and emotions, for that special man I would meet someday. My heart’s desire was to honor God and my future spouse. I wanted to be able to look back on those preparation years and know that I had made choices that contributed to a healthy marriage.

Most of my high school years were spent growing in relationship with God, learning more about myself, and developing core values for dating relationships. I didn’t date much in high school, not really because of a conscious choice, but mainly because I wasn’t pursued. Being pursued was a core value of mine, so it was painful feeling like I wasn’t "noticed” during those years. Looking back now, I can see I wasn’t really "wired” for the kind of teenage dating that happens before you’re in a stage of life where you’re ready to get married. I learned what it looked like for me to delight myself in God—in His faithfulness — and trust Him with the desires of my heart (see Ps. 37:4). I wrote my future husband a lot of letters in those years. It was cathartic to share my thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a raw, honest way with someone who would someday love and accept me. Writing letters really gave purpose to that season in my life, especially when I felt lonely.

Somewhere in the transition from my later years in high school to attending university, I began to see a few themes emerge in my journey. The first theme was that every step and experience was preparation. I

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