At a young age, I was taught Jesus cares about all the details of your life. While growing up, Psalm 139 misted and, eventually, saturated my mind. For instance: 

• Verse 2: “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.”
• Verse 4: “Before a word is on my tongue[,] you, Lord, know it completely.” 
• Verse 7: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” 
• Verse 13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” 
• Verse 15: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.” 
• Verse 16: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” 

The whole chapter is worth the few minutes to mentally savor. 

Because my childhood brimmed with love from a personal God, to me, praying for my husband at a young age wasn’t kooky. I don’t know my exact age, but, at some point, I developed a pattern of praying for him.

My prayers weren’t pioneering; they were plain-Jane. 

If you think praying as a kid for your future spouse is loony, I see your hesitation, and I’ll match and raise you another. As a late teen, I started writing letters to him. In my Christian world, this wasn’t aberrant. Since Christianity invests in your future (including, marriage) with present, sacrificial choices, the letters advanced this logic. About twenty years later, before I gave my husband these letters for our first wedding anniversary, with reluctance, I reread them. 

Overly idealistic. Check.

Naive. Yes. 

Embarrassing. Indeed.

Despite my mild, self-conscious distress, I’m thankful I saved this time capsule of my heart. More consequential, I wanted my husband to know he’s been thought of, hoped for and waited on — for years. He wasn’t “just another” guy, who was adorable and a great date. I planned for him to be uniquely valued and set apart in my life. 

Back to the decades of prayer for my husband, prior to any evidence of his existence. 

In my twenties, my prayers for my (mythical?) husband changed: I prayed he wouldn’t give up on finding the right person.

In my thirties, again, the tone of my prayers shifted: save someone for me, if marriage is in my future at all? 

When I was thirty-five, we met.

The answers to my prayers were striking. 

Here’s a few examples. When I was particularly lonely or my dating life was a joke (most of the time), praying for him was an act of (nearly outlandish) hope. I’d pray for what the religious may consider ignoble: we’d have the best intimate life in the history of the world, he’d be technologically inclined (technology is a weak point for me) and great with investing (I watch my wallet but am financially risk averse). 

It turned out, my husband went to a technical boys school. Unlike me, in grade school, he learned and remembers useful, practical knowledge. He can fix pretty much everything and is technologically savvy. He has a shelf of investment books, and he’s read them all.

During years of prayers, my husband was across the ocean, on another continent. The reality my prayers impacted someone more than 8000 miles away still gets me. For the cynics, yes, he became a U.S. citizen before we met.

How do I know my prayers impacted him? He’s better than I asked for or imagined. God did more than answer my prayers; he gifted me with someone better.