What Happens When You Write Letters to Your Future Husband

This is part of a story series that can be read in any order. Read on for what I discovered happens when you write letters to your future husband, a man you don’t yet know.

I’m not sure why I never envisioned The Moment before.

Being such a planner usually means I foil my own surprises–and I actually don’t mind. Surprises anticipated are even more fun, in my mind. Before you fervently disagree with that sentence, can I tell you about a time I was wrong?

Because envisioning The Moment couldn’t have made it any sweeter when it actually happened.

But first, let me back up and say I’ve greatly admired my friend Meghan for how she keeps a journal to her future husband. She writes in it sporadically and regularly. One day, some lucky guy is going to be blown away by her faithfulness to him, begun years before she ever met him.

I don’t do that.

I have no such journal. I have three letter-size envelopes instead, saved from years and years ago. One is thick, which makes me worried, because I’ve long since forgotten any idea what I wrote in any of them, much less what I wrote to warrant more than one sheet of paper. Points go to Meg again, because she can flip back and see what she’s written to Her Guy. Me? I’ve long since forgotten what teenage Rachelle wrote to my future husband. Will it be overly romantic, even sappy? Will it be embarassing? Probably.

Dear Future Husband, I can’t wait for you to read these.

Mostly because that means I get to read them, those missives whose contents I can no longer recall. How I’ll laugh. I may even cry.

I almost cried the other day, when The Moment happened.

Devin and I were standing in the bookstore and I was pulling cute little cubbyhole letters off a shelf, a D for him, an R for me. When I saw the hideaway books beside those letters, I abandoned what I’d been holding. “I have one of these,” I said as I took one off the shelf and opened it, examining the hollow center.

Just the perfect size for three letter-size envelopes.

When Devin glanced over to see what I was looking at, I held it up for him. And I started to say, “I keep letters in mine to…” That was when I realized. The Moment it became clear. I’m marrying him. He’ll be my husband. He is my future husband now.

Those letters are for him.

He interpreted the look on my face and asked me what I was thinking. And all I could say was, “You’re him.”

He hasn’t read those letters yet. I’m not sure when I’ll present them. Maybe as a wedding present? Maybe on our honeymoon? Maybe when we’re making our first home, I’ll just leave them somewhere. Or maybe I’ll shelf that hollow hideaway book and at just the right moment, take it off the shelf and show him the letters I wrote for him when I believed he’d come but he was still years off.

I’ll read them over his shoulder and we’ll chuckle at the grown-up version of the girl who wrote those letters, trusting he’d come riding in like a knight to make me his.

Dear Single Sisters, even if you don’t keep a journal to your man, consider writing a letter. Just a single letter. Tell him you love him, that you’re waiting for him.

I challenge you to seal it shut so it’s a secret between your today-soul until such a time as you are wed.

And wait for The Moment. It’s worth waiting for.