I have an very unusual and confusing situation for which I would like to request prayer. This is a very long story, so I apologize in advance and will try to keep it as straight forward as possible.
Many years ago when I was in college, I began to pray to God to help me find a wife. I am a very reserved person who keeps to himself and rarely goes out, but I deeply desired to find a wife and get married. Not long after a prayed for this, something strange happened. One day I was suddenly approached by a young woman who I had never met before. She began to speak to me as if we were old friends from way back, even calling me by name. Yet I had never once seen her before.
Now I know the first thing people will think. "You just met her somewhere and forgot." Well, that's what I thought too. I brushed off the encounter thinking that I probably had a class with her or something. Over the next few days she approached me several more times, always friendly and happy to see me as if we were old buddies. I played along, not wanting to insult her by saying "hey, I have no idea who you are." By talking to her though, I learned where she thought we met. Apparently, she believed we had met at a church or bible study. This was completely impossible as I never attended any such activities before I met her. I was a Christian, but was just starting out and very anti-social. Attending something like that would have been completely out of character for me, and something I would most certainly not forget doing. But she was fully convinced that this was where we met.
I chose not to dig too deeply into the matter because I didn't want to cause too much of a stir. At this point, I was starting to develop feelings for her. I became convinced that the strange way we met was God's way of answering my prayer, and that this must be his way of introducing me to the woman I should marry, who I would not have met otherwise.
Unfortunately, things have not worked out that way. It took me a while to work up the courage to try to ask her out (again, socializing is not my strong point). But I never could, because there were always obstacles in the way. Long story short, she was always either dating someone else, or moving around the country when she wasn't. This went on for years, with there always being something preventing any possibility of a relationship. A few year ago, she was finally back in my area and single, so I thought I would take a chance and finally try to start what I hoped would be a relationship with the woman God wanted me to marry. I asked her out on a date, and the answer was a rather blunt "no." She made it abundantly clear that she had never and would never be interested in me in that way.
Needless to say, this caused me quite a bit of inner turmoil. I don't feet like I get much communication from God, but he had brought her into my life in such an unusual way that I was sure it was supposed to mean something. I had felt in my heart that God was behind our meeting and intended for us to be married. It was the one thing I felt God had truly spoken to me about, and the one moment where I believed God had irrefutably intervened on my behalf. But she wasn't even remotely interested.
It's been 17 years since I met her. She is still single, but lives in another part of the country far away. I am occasionally in contact with her over facebook, but that is it. I still feel this hope in my heart that something will happen one day. But as I've talked to her more, I've come to realize that she is looking for someone who is the complete opposite of everything I am. I cannot be what she wants, and I cannot expect her to change what she wants. So I am faced with this soul-crushing question of why God brought her into my life in such an unusual way, at a time when I was praying for a wife? Why would he answer my prayer with a woman who finds me completely and utterly unattractive? And if she was not meant to be woman he wanted me to marry, why did he bring her to my attention in such an unusual way?
So, here is where I am asking for prayer regarding this situation. I need a definitive answer from God one way or the other. I've been mulling this over for 17 years and I'm tired. If she's meant to be the one, then I need some kind of confirmation, and for her to start to see me as somebody worth marrying. But if she's not the one, then I need to know that I should stop expecting something to happen, and I want to know WHY I was lead to believe something that was untrue.
Sorry for such a long post and I hope it wasn't rambling too much. I just needed to get it out there because it's been weighing on me for a long time.
