“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

-King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4)

Verses like the above remind us that God’s timing is perfect. He often does not answer our prayers in the timeframe that we want Him to, but whenever He finally reveals His answer, we realize that His way truly was the best. He is like the master novelist, building suspense and interweaving sadness and heartache, while the entire time He is advancing the plot to the culmination when it is revealed that every detail was working towards a happy end.

While Bea and I are just beginning our story together, we can already rejoice in the way that in God’s perfect timing He brought us together. We can look back and thank Him for every detail, because each one led us to this moment. When Bea and I describe our family and our story, the word that we use most often is “unconventional”. From the outside it might even look crazy. But for me and my bride and our family of seven, it is a story of grace and love and God’s immense favor.

Bea and I met on a Christian dating app. If you are single and ready to mingle, this really could be a solution for you. There are lots of landmines, but it just might be the way that God brings you the one He has prepared for you. But I digress! Bea and I both discovered a new dating app for followers of Christ. Neither one of us had high expectations. She mostly installed the app to show a few of her friends that it was safe. I installed it because nothing else seemed to be working. I liked her profile because she talked a lot about Jesus and I thought she was really pretty. Whenever I received a notification that she liked me back, I tried not to get my hopes up, but I immediately knew this was a girl I wanted to spend more time with. I later found out that she liked my profile mostly out of curiosity. What kind of guy is a single father to five kids? And what kind of guy uproots said kids and goes to Bulgaria?

Apparently my profile wasn’t very precise, because Bea thought that we lived in the US and did short-term trips to Bulgaria. When she found out that actually we live in Bulgaria and do short-term trips to the US, I think her response was, “Oh, I see. Well, I really am not looking for that long distance of a relationship, but if you want we can chat as friends.” While I responded, “Of course, no problem!”, my true aim was to somehow win this girl’s heart. It started with tricking her into a video call. And that turned into daily video calls.

While I don’t remember the exact timeline, I think it was less than a week later that we both realized that God could be doing something very special in our lives. While in the beginning, we decided that we would never say “I love you” to someone we had only seen on a screen, it soon became impossible for me to not share those words that had become an undeniable reality in my heart.

Pretty quickly we knew that if there truly were a path forward for us, we would have to meet face to face. Bea’s immigration status allows her to live and study in the US, but she can’t come and go as she pleases. This meant that if we were going to meet, I would be traveling to the state of Michigan. So, tickets were purchased and plans were made. My mom and one of my aunts would come to Bulgaria and watch the kids, and I would go and win the heart and the hand of the girl I love.

While I wish that our love story had only good chapters, I am embarrassed to say that it doesn’t. There was a time in which both of us began doubting God’s plan for our future. It seemed too impossible to work out. And due to past pain in my life, it seemed too impossible that she could actually love me and want to be a part of our craziness. That insecurity led me to preemptively tell Bea that we probably shouldn’t be together and that it probably wasn’t a good idea to come. But even as writing those words brings pain to me now, saying those words to her then felt so… wrong. I told myself I was acting out of strength, but actually… I was acting out of cowardice and fear.

I am so glad that period of doubting lasted only a few days. We both separately realized that – as unconventional as our story is – if it is God’s will, then it will work out beautifully. And we both also realized that if it is God’s will for us to serve together as husband and wife, it didn’t really make sense to spend the next years of our lives talking on the phone. So with that in mind, when I traveled to Michigan in late February, I had a plan. And that plan involved a ring!

Those nine days in Michigan were full to the brim with God’s favor. On day one we had our first date. And on day three her dad gave their blessing for me to propose. While I didn’t have a stopwatch, there were only a few minutes between receiving that blessing and my getting down on one knee. Those days together were a powerful confirmation that God’s favor is on our lives. One day maybe you will get to hear the whole story, but I hope that these few details have encouraged you.

If you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have the freedom to be brave and to do things that the world views as crazy. You can do them, because He is your loving Father and He has a plan to prosper you and bless you and to glorify His own name through the story of your life. Following Him daily, you can live with the assurance that He will work out every detail and will use every mountain and every valley to tell a story. And that story will show His love to a world that desperately needs to see it.

So that is our story. And the best part? It is just beginning!

Thank you for being a part of our celebration!

- Josh