Wishing, Hoping, Thinking and Praying

When I was a little girl, probably around eight or nine, my family used to listen to a certain cassette tape in the car whenever we were going somewhere. It was by Wayne Watson, a Christian music artist. I loved all of the songs on the tape, but one sticks out in my memory more than the rest. It was called "Somewhere in the World" and it was about a father praying for his little boy’s future wife:

"Somewhere in the world today
A little girl will go out to play...
And I don't even know her name
But I'm prayin' for her just the same
That the Lord will write His name upon her heart."

I would sit and listen, and I would wonder whether somewhere, some little boy’s parents were praying for me…

Ever since I was really little, I felt sure that I would get married and be a mom when I grew up. And I’m not sure whether this is weird or not, but I remember thinking about my future husband fairly often from a pretty young age. I believed with a child’s faith in God and the fact that He had a plan for my life. I believed that God already had a husband picked out for me, and all I had to do was find him. Every once in a while I would wonder what he was doing, what his life was like. I would wonder what he looked like and what his name was. And when I remembered, I would pray for him during my bedtime prayers.

When I met Daniel, although he had been raised Catholic like me, he had pretty much fallen away from his faith—as had much of his family. I’m sure I will go into more detail about all of this later, but to say the least, he and I had many long and emotional (at least on my side) debates about everything from the authority of the Church to the existence of God to abortion. I prayed for him like I had never prayed for anything in my life.

This may sound silly, but now that I know who my future husband is, I am so glad that I used to pray for him when I was younger. I like to think that even those very general prayers way back then helped. Prayer changes things. Even if you feel funny praying for someone you’ve never met and whose name you don’t even know, try it anyway. I highly suggest it. ;-).