{"id":9184,"date":"2012-07-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=9184"},"modified":"2012-07-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T00:00:00","slug":"the-man-who-waited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/parenting\/parenting-challenges\/sexual-wholeness\/the-man-who-waited\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Waited"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Throughout most of Tee Uzoigwe\u2019s collegiate basketball career, his teammates teased him about being a virgin.\u00a0But that all changed one day when the athletic trainer walked into the locker room, waving a sheet of paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys, I want you to sit down right quick,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause we have a very serious incident going on here.”<\/p>\n

He explained that a girl who had HIV had been arrested. When asked about her sexual partners, she gave the names of more than 50 young men. “You need to come and check and see if your name is on this list,\u201d the trainer announced.<\/p>\n

Tee did not need to check the list.<\/p>\n

“Everybody on the team went from teasing me to wanting to be<\/em> me,” he says, “And I remember thinking, God is so good<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Tee was grateful that day that he had decided as a young man to save his virginity for his wife. He remembered what his pastor had once told him: \u201cOnce you lose your virginity, you cannot get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had seen friends and family members give away their virginity, as though it were a cheap party favor. And he had witnessed some difficult results: sexually transmitted diseases \u2026 children out of wedlock \u2026 abortions.<\/p>\n

Yes, he could have made the same choices. That would have been the easy thing to do. But when he looked at all of the devastation in his family he said, \u201cI want something different.\u201d And that difference meant honoring God by following His design and abstaining from sex until marriage.<\/p>\n

Wanting a better life<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Tee\u2019s mother was a young teenager when he was born. His father treated her like property and was seldom home. There wasn\u2019t much food in their trailer, and they had little clothing. She wanted a better life for her children.<\/p>\n

He remembers her snuggling him, his older brother, and younger sister together on the couch when he was about 5, and hearing her cry out, \u201cGod, if you are real, if You are out there, find some way to get to my kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within weeks of that prayer, a new church began in the mobile-home park where the Uzoigwe family lived. The church started helping with the family’s food and clothing needs. Church members also started picking up Tee and his siblings for Sunday services.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family didn\u2019t really follow Christ,\u201d Tee says, \u201cbut the church played a part in helping us get introduced to Jesus.\u201d And no one played a bigger part than Pastor John Hurd and his wife, Betty. For most of his life Tee has called them his grandparents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandparents paid attention to us,\u201d Tee says, \u201cand we never had anyone really pay attention to us before.\u201d He wondered why they were so nice \u201cbecause we were young black kids and they were a Caucasian older couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hurds kept telling Tee about a man named Jesus. They told him, \u201cThis Jesus is the reason for what we are doing.\u201d \u00a0Tee wanted the same Jesus that the Hurds had. When he was 7 years old, he accepted Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want something different\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The more that Tee got to know the Hurds and the people at church, the more he realized something was not right in his home. \u201cI longed for a family that was better than what I had.\u201d\u00a0He told his pastor that he wanted a godly wife.\u00a0\u201cStart praying for her right now,\u201d Pastor Hurd told him, \u201cand you be the right kind of person.”<\/p>\n

When Tee was about 11, at his mother’s request, Pastor Hurd explained the facts of life to him. \u00a0Not only did he teach Tee about the physical aspects of sexual intimacy, but he also told him about God\u2019s design for sex between a husband and a wife.\u00a0He explained why it was worth waiting for God\u2019s best by saving himself for marriage.<\/p>\n

Pastor Hurd also showed Tee real-life examples of what happens when someone has premarital sex. He pointed out people with AIDS, single women with children out of wedlock, and young men paying child support for a “one-night stand.”<\/p>\n

“Look at what happened to this guy who started having sex before marriage,\u201d Pastor Hurd would say. And when Tee\u2019s cousin got pregnant out of wedlock, he told him, \u201cI know that\u2019s a tough thing. God is not trying to keep you from having fun when He says \u2018Don\u2019t have sex before marriage.\u2019 He is trying to protect you.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then he pointed Tee to 2 Timothy 2:22\u2014\u201cNow flee from youthful lusts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastor Hurd explained to Tee that it was important that he make up his mind beforehand about what to do in a situation where he might be tempted.\u00a0So Tee made a rule for himself: He would not have any girls in his room except for his mother and sisters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandma [Mrs. Hurd] used to always say, \u2018God knew how He created your body; you need to flee. You don\u2019t need to sit there and try to say, \u201cI can handle this.\u201d You need to flee.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She also helped Tee appreciate modesty in young women. When she and Tee walked together, she might critique the dress of the young women who passed by. \u201cThat isn\u2019t attractive when a girl has a low-cut blouse and her pants are too tight,\u201d she\u2019d say. Or, \u201cThat\u2019s a good example. She is attractive but she is covered up well. She\u2019s drawing attention to her face, not necessarily to her body.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Tee arrived on the college campus he was determined\u2014with God’s help\u2014to abstain from sex before marriage. He was still praying for his future spouse and wanted to marry a virgin … a girl who was modestly dressed … who had a passion for Christ. He wanted to break the legacy of brokenness in his family and begin a new legacy. When he married, he wanted it to be for life.<\/p>\n

While other guys were partying, Tee would often spend time in his dorm room with the Lord. He\u2019d say, God, I\u2019m making a stand here<\/em>, and write in the margins of his worn Bible. On March 14, 2006, he wrote by Matthew 19:7-9, \u201cI will wait for you, Mrs. Uzoigwe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t happening\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Tee waited for Mrs. Uzoigwe throughout four years of college and during graduate school. When he finished school and began coaching at a junior high school, he was still waiting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I could support a wife,\u201d Tee says, \u201cand the passion [for a wife] kept growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tee recalls thinking, I am 27 years old\u2014it ain\u2019t happening.<\/em> Despite his doubts, he kept reading the Scriptures and prayed, God, either send me a wife or take away this passion and give me the gift of chastity<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 2009 Tee wondered if he would be single forever. He shared with Pastor Hurd how hard it was for him to maintain his purity. He and his \u201cGrandpa\u201d spent lots of time talking together around a table. \u201cI felt like I could ask him anything,\u201d Tee says, \u201cthat he wasn\u2019t going to come down on my head it I had an impure thought. \u2026 He understood that I was going to have these feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

And God seemed to tell Tee not to give up. Tee would pray, God, please protect her wherever she is.\u00a0Just keep her safe and God, if this is not something You want in my life, change the desire in my heart and help me have the gift of singleness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGuess who?\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Sometimes Tee would think about a girl who he knew in college, Erica Smith. \u201cShe was the coolest girl I hung around and I couldn\u2019t find her anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to him, Erica was teaching in a nearby school. One of her former fourth-grade students, a girl named Cydney, was in Tee\u2019s sixth-grade P.E. class.<\/p>\n

Cydney and Erica had kept in touch, and one day Cydney asked Erica if she happened to know Coach Tee. Surprised, Erica said, \u201cHe was only my best bud in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erica decided to play a trick on Tee. She wrote just two words, \u201cGuess Who?\u201d<\/em> in funny little letters on a piece of paper and asked Cydney to give it to him.<\/p>\n

A few days later Cydney handed Tee the unsigned note. He says that the way the words were written reminded him of the notes that Erica Smith gave him in college. They had not seen one another in three years.<\/p>\n

Tee answered, \u201cErica.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at the little girl.\u201d Tee recalls, \u201cand she was like How did you know it was her? \u2026 <\/em>And we started having a conversation about how Erica was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erica\u2019s family<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Erica\u2019s parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have all been followers of Jesus Christ. She says her mom and dad, who have been married for more than three decades, have been her example for how to build a good marriage. She watched the way they sacrificed for one another, the way their eyes met, the words they spoke. “I just knew they genuinely loved each other.”<\/p>\n

Her parents helped her understand that God designed sex for marriage. Erica says, \u201cLove is respecting you enough to say, \u2018I\u2019m going to wait.\u2019\u201d And unlike many of the girls she knew in high school and college, Erica was willing to wait for a godly spouse.<\/p>\n

One day Erica asked a sorority sister, who had a reputation for loose morals, why she constantly made fun of her. “Because you are a virgin,” she answered. ” … I’d give anything to go back and be a virgin.”<\/p>\n

Erica became a student of marriages: the good and the bad. She noticed that the marriages she valued were centered on Jesus Christ. \u00a0Above all, she says, she wanted her future husband \u201cto be God-fearing because I knew if he wasn\u2019t God-fearing, we wouldn\u2019t make it.\u201d And she often prayed for her future husband. \u201cGod protect him and keep him. Whatever it is, God, let him know that You are still there and still in his life.”<\/p>\n

She also started praying that God would let her future spouse know that she was still out there, and not to give up. And she asked God to prepare her for him.<\/p>\n

More than friends<\/strong><\/h5>\n

After getting the note from Erica, Tee called her in March 2009. They began to rekindle their longtime friendship by texting one another and hanging out together. This quickly blossomed into steady dating and Tee wondered if Erica would be more than a good friend. Was she God\u2019s choice for his wife?<\/p>\n

Tee was attracted to Erica because of her character and passion to follow Jesus Christ.\u00a0He also noticed that she was a frugal spender. The first day he went to her house, he recalls, she said she wanted to show him what she had bought that day.\u00a0Tee expected to see all sorts of expensive purchases. But instead she showed him a shirt and announced that she had only paid $9 for it.<\/p>\n

Tee says that he could see that Erica was not only a beautiful godly woman, but also sensible about her buying habits. He thought, This is a good candidate <\/em>[for marriage].<\/p>\n

He also recalls thinking, as he watched Erica interact with her father, Oh, man \u2026 if she respects her dad like that, I know that she will respect me <\/em>[if we marry].<\/p>\n

Erica says that Tee\u2019s heart is what attracted her to him. She was looking for a Christian man whose life would say to her, \u201cI genuinely am going to love you and I genuinely want to take care of you and I genuinely want to respect you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wedding day<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In April 2009 Tee asked for Erica’s hand in marriage. Six weeks later, she became Mrs. Tarvoris Uzoigwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember coming down [the aisle] and seeing that Tee was acting like a kid in the candy store,\u201d Erica says. \u00a0At that moment \u201cI finally got to see why I was so happy to wait on God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tee thought that day about family, friends, teammates, acquaintances, professors, and many others who had told him that it was unlikely that he would find a girl with \u201cthe entire package.\u201d Some had suggested that he choose a girl with a bit of a tainted past. Tee remembered a trusted friend advising him, \u201cYour time is running out. You are too picky.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pastor Hurd had told Tee to wait for God’s best for him.<\/p>\n

As his bride walked towards him that day, Tee looked at God’s best for him. He says he felt the presence of the Lord. \u201cIt was as if God gave me one of his angels to marry. I felt like someone gave me the gift of all gifts. She was more than beautiful, she was captivating. … She was what I had waited for my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Because they were sexually pure before marriage, Erica and\u00a0Tee\u00a0say they never “have to worry about who [the other has] been with. You don’t have to question who was better [sexually].” They say that they feel more secure\u00a0knowing that when they married,\u00a0sexual experiences\u00a0were\u00a0new to both of them. “And this makes us … even closer,\u201d says\u00a0Tee.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Tee\u00a0was a little boy, he wanted something different for his family. Now married for more than five years and the father of a little girl, he and Erica are living that different life.\u00a0\u00a0“I trusted God to be faithful,” he says. “He did above what I could have imagined.”<\/p>\n

\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010, 2014 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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