Two women sat across a table from each other, open Bibles before them. One was in deep trouble over her marriage. This trouble had led her to a hunger for the Lord and His Word.

Wistfully she said to her friend, "You were smart, you married your own kind."

Swift pictures of the contrast in their lives flashed across her friend's mind. She reviewed her own girlhood in a quiet little assembly of the Lord's people. There were a few other young people but none to be considered seriously as a life companion. She had the normal youthful longing for good times and more exciting companions.

The scene changed and she remembered being alone on her knees in her bedroom. Having studied God's Word, and investigated the principles upon which the little assembly met, she was convinced it was the Lord's path for His people. Now consequences were His responsibility, not hers. If He wanted her to marry, He would provide one thoroughly suitable. Seeking a bride for Isaac, Abraham's servant could say, "I being in the way, the Lord led me" (Genesis 24:27). Would He do less today?

A scene flashed a few years later when a clean, sweet, Christian young man, who had grown up in a home and an assembly like her own, was stammering out a proposal of marriage. Half-scared, she had gulped, "We'd better pray about it." Later, clear it was the Lord's will, she gave her consent.

Now swift pictures flashed before her mind: their happy children, all confessing Christ at an early age; the joy of common interests, laughter together, agreement about raising children; family worship, with even the youngest child taking his turn at reading God's Word aloud, and joining in prayer; the Lord's people welcome and congenial guests in the home; courtesy and tender consideration between husband and wife; the husband coming home to tell with joy of presenting Christ to someone they had been burdened for and saying, "I knew you must have been praying for me."

Darker moments flashed by: unemployment, illness, rough spots along the road. And always the comfort of kneeling together seeking the lessons from these things, knowing that: "All things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28).

She looked across the table at her troubled friend who had known a sheltered, gentle girlhood and had gone to Sunday school and had the Word of God placed in her hands as a child. Against her parents' wishes, she had married an unbeliever and had consented to having her lovely children raised in his religion. Finally, she had followed the rest of her family into the same church. Now, the man she had loved so dearly and for whom she had given up so much was a heavy drinker, selfish and inconsiderate. The children were learning unhappy memories of an intoxicated father. She had reaped all this heartache because of self-will (Galatians 6:7,8). Now her own heart was hungry for the reality of faith and peace in Christ and liberty from the hard bondage she felt in her family and spiritual life.

Dear young folks, the companion the Lord has for you is worth waiting for! "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass" (Psalm 37:5). MARRY YOUR OWN KIND!

—Selected