Patrice Amoaye - All That I Am: Becoming the best you before your Boaz

Patrice Amoaye is the Executive Pastor of Gods Power Ministries, Sydney, Australia. She is trained in social psychology and counselling. She is a wife and mother who is passionate about women living fulfilling and graceful lives by being purposeful and intentional about who they are in God. She believes that connecting to God and finding yourself in Him is the genesis of an impactful life, and from that flows everything else love, marriage, purpose and destiny.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the English Standard Version, Good News Publishers. Copyright 2001, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2016. New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondavan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labelled (AMP) are from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987, by Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are from New King James Version. Copyright 1982. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NIVUK) are from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Anglicised), NIV. Copyright 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondavan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale Publishers, Inc.

This book is dedicated to my son. You are a testimony of Gods
faithfulness

And to my Boaz.

I am grateful for the man you are and for the woman I have

become because of you.

I thank God for the journey we have been on for many years together. I am grateful for your love and your kindness through which I have grown, and from which I have learnt so much. You inspired the writing of this book through the revelation that rather than wait, one should prepare oneself for a man like you.

As Paul says in Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

This book has been written by the grace and strength of God.

Prophet Richard Amoaye my husband, you are a great source of inspiration. When I wanted to give up your words of encouragement kept me going.

Prophet Victor Kusi-Boateng and Mummy Anita, this book is the fruit of a word sowed and now coming to pass. I am grateful for your prayers, support and love.

Eugenia Marembo, this book should actually have two authors. Your commitment, dedication and the investment of countless hours of work is incredible. May the Lord remember your labour. I am forever grateful and I pray that God will bless you.

Eva Batsilas, thank you for your contribution to the final stage of the editorial process, it has brought an additional depth to this book.

Amanda Mayengehama, thank you for working tirelessly on the graphics from the onset.

Rumbidzai Mapira, thank you for your time and dedication to looking after my son. You gave me the freedom to concentrate and I am grateful.

My parents Ps Chris and Vida Bonsu, I thank you for your love and prayers. Preparing Before Your Boaz class of 2016, thank you for your openness and honesty during the sessions. You inspired me and led me to the realisation of the need for this book. My GPM church family, I love and appreciate every one of you. You make GPM a wonderful place to call home.

Growing up, romantic relationships intrigued me. There was always a pull towards anything to do with love and romance because for me, the notion of two individuals, from diverse backgrounds, cultures or religion, coming together to form a union of great connection, was fascinating. This fascination meant I was always on the lookout for the connections between people in relationships and I made it a habit to watch how they interacted.

My observation of relationships that I was exposed to growing up was that there seemed to be something lacking or missing. I was unsure what that something was until I was old enough to watch romantic movies. These movies then presented what seemed to be as the missing something, simplicity and effortlessness. The essence of relationships and love in these movies was presented in a very simple and almost effortless way: boy meets girl, boy loves girl and she loves him right back and they live happily ever after. This was a far cry from the relationships I knew which seemed to require hard work and great effort. So I formed my own internal ideal of love and my own picture of a perfect marriage relationship.

I realised that over time what I had learnt from the movies and media created expectations that would later conflict with my reality. I determined to find the effortless and wow factor relationship in my world as portrayed in the movies. However, as the years went by I had more questions than answers because my personal relational experiences left me with much to be desired and hence no closer to making sense of my internal conflicts or finding this wow factor.

Relationships remained puzzling to me, especially the marriage relationship. I realised that a large number of the married people I knew wanted to get out of their marriage, while a great majority of those who were unmarried like my friends and I longed to be married. I couldnt help but notice another great disparity which was that, some people seemed to be enduring their marriage and others appeared to be content and enjoying marriage. I wondered what made the difference in these contrasting experiences. What made one relationship different from the other and what made an ordinary relationship different from an extraordinary one?

I was in many ways consumed with these questions because I had known for a fact when I was younger that I would get married and have children one day. In my mind, it was never a question of whether it would happen but rather a matter of when it would happen. I had heard many narratives about women having to be ready for marriage, however, I rarely heard about the idea of preparing oneself for marriage in any detail. Truth be told, I wanted in my own way to be prepared for marriage. I was waiting for someone along the way to pull me aside as I was growing up to offer some teaching and guidance on my inevitable fate as a married woman.

Unfortunately, that was never the case; no one ever went into detail about preparing for marriage. I always thought, if marriage was such a significant part of my future, why wasnt there someone intentionally guiding me through any form of pre-process? Was it someone elses responsibility or was it my own? Was I meant to be doing something to better position myself for the relationship dynamics and complexities I had to overcome in order to experience a successful wow factor marriage?

Soon enough, I was married and I carried my unanswered questions, conflicting expectations and ideals into the relationship. I went in believing and expecting that my husband would fulfil every need and desire I had, in a nutshell, my happiness would be his responsibility. The expectations I had carried into my marriage did not match with my reality and I found myself in a place where I was quick to believe the fault lay with my husband. I would examine his actions instead of looking at what was happening within me.

One afternoon I was scrolling through social media posts when I came across an inspirational piece on a page titled, Waiting for your Boaz. The premise of the page was to encourage single women to wait for their God-ordained husband. In the weeks that followed two things kept playing on my mind. The first was the idea of Boaz and the second was the idea of your Boaz. I understood from my knowledge of the story of Ruth and Boaz in Scripture, that the concept was about Gods choice of husband and the fulfilment of a life of purpose. I thought a lot about this idea of waiting and how it related to my interest in understanding how wow factor relationships come about.