When I turned thirteen, my mother started me praying for my husband. Not that he’d be rich or handsome (though I must confess I sneaked in a few petitions that he wouldn’t look like a gorilla!), but that he would know Christ, desire to serve him, and wait for me. At the same time, Mom told me about a letter she had written to herself when she was thirteen. She sealed it to be opened when she turned eighteen and kept it in a box for herself. That letter contained a list of the qualities she wanted in a husband—the things she would wait for. Inspired, I wrote a similar list and a letter and sealed them up, but I marked the envelope for opening on my twenty-first birthday. The letter lay safe in a little keepsake trunk, nearly forgotten through my high school years. In the meantime, when I remembered to, I prayed for the one I would marry.