The List

The list, THE list, of ingredients for the perfect man.  It’s something that every woman has written at one point time, if not on paper, on her heart.  It’s the hopes and dreams and wishes for a man like her daddy, or anything else other than her daddy. It’s a list that over the passing of time will change and adopt new “top” items as life lessons are learned.

Mine has grown and changed, shortened and grown again.  It’s a list I used to rattle off to God, hoping he was taking notes and molding a man into what I wanted and needed as my future husband, but then my perspective changed.  I do believe that God has our future mate picked out, just as He has written every other chapter of our lives, but I don’t feel the need to pray for the things I want in a man, or even pray for this supposed future mate, because God knows best.

So my list has changed drastically.  Instead of listing things that make up my “perfect man”, such as, “He enjoys the outdoors, but also enjoys staying in and watching movies”, it now includes characteristics of a person that would be ideal to spend the rest of my life with because I’m not settling for anything but the best.

This may seem strange to include in my Top 5 list, but if you knew anything about my family, you’d understand.  There’s not a serious bone in our body. We are good at managing those bones to behave according to the situation, but most of the time we’re downright comical. Sarcasm flows through conversations just as much as the teenage girl uses the filler, “like”. We pick on one another, we shoot zingers at each other at family gatherings and we take the world and what it brings us with a grain of salt, which is then tossed over our shoulder to ward off vampires (except Damon from The Vampire Diaries; he’s welcome at my house any time!).  In a strange way, it’s how we show our feelings towards one another. But it’s how we roll; it’s how I roll and it’s how I hope my future family will roll.  Life is much easier to swallow with a bit of laughter mixed in!

I love kids and I love my family.  Being a part of a family of five, I have come to learn through my singleness and living alone, how accustomed I had grown to the chaos and noise of life.  The sounds of your loved ones, even from a separate room, is comforting and a reminder of the blessings God has given us.  My family means the world to me.  I wouldn’t be the woman that I am today without them.  They have helped to mold and shape me through their guidance and support.  They have helped me pick up the broken pieces of life time and again and they’ve seen me through some of my hardest decisions.

It is my prayer that I am blessed to find a man whose family means just as much to him as mine means to me.  It is my prayer that he will look forward to family gatherings and enjoy spending time with the people that first loved us.  It is my prayer that he will desire to expand our family through the blessing of children.  I pray that he will be the kind of earthly father that my children will need to love and guide them to becoming followers of Christ and stewards of His creation.

My older sister, my smile maker, has Cerebral Palsy.  Don’t say, “Ah, I’m sorry.”  Don’t say, “Oh that’s too bad.”  Please don’t say anything at all.  To me, stating the above is like saying my sister is a brunette.  Both are facts and I love her no matter who she is and what she looks like to the outside world.  I was born into a family that was already set aside as being different.  I’ve not known life any other way and it will never be any other way here on earth.  My future spouse needs to understand these things.  He needs to know what it means to have someone else in his life who is fully dependent upon others, no matter their age.  He needs to see her as I see her, as a beautiful, caring and intelligent being with a wicked sense of humor.  There’s no way around it.  She is a part of who I am today and will forever be.

This man whom I am to accept in my life as being my partner, must be devoted to all that he does.  That means his responsibilities at work, at home, at church and in his relationships with others and myself.  He needs to know that when he says, “yes” to something that he needs to carry through with whatever it is he has agreed to, until it is no longer beneficial in his growth as a man, husband, father or Christian.

He also needs to be pursuant of his dreams, and that includes me.  I have done enough chasing of men in my time.  I have settled for “lemons” that I thought I would be able to change from sour fruit into something sweet.  Changing someone is a waste of time as it rarely produces results.  A man should pursue a relationship with me, just as he pursues other hopes and dreams he has, with his whole heart.  He should chase after and seek my heart, winning it out of love not obligation.

He’s gotta love God.  No “ifs”, “ands” or “buts” about it! No matter how “good” of a man he is, if his number one priority is not having a relationship with Jesus, than I’m not interested.  I’ve settled for much less than this in years past and it’s always bitten me in the behind.  My earthly relationships suffered as I changed to become what my significant other wanted me to be.  What was more devastating, was that I also allowed a relationship with a man to come between me and God.  It won’t happen again.  I’ve come to far to settle for anything but the best.