Chapter 32: What Hath God Wrought!

9/15/2025

Numbers 23:23 – “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!”
 
Joel 2:25a “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…”
 
            Hi.
          It’s been awhile, I know. My last entry in this travel log was January 29, 2024. And, whoo-boy, there’s a LOT that’s happened in my life in those 19 ½ months! I’ve actually been meaning to sit down and write this log entry for a few months now, but, surprisingly, I just didn’t know where to start or what to say. Those of you reading this who know me and are friends with me in my daily life are probably also surprised by that admission. But it’s true. It’s not so much what happened 7 ½ months ago as it is what’s happened in the last two weeks. Events both in my personal life and in national news have made me pause at an unusual crossroads and sit for a spell.
          Oh, and by the way, my 5th birthday is in two days. It’s been five years since I got saved. Five years since that night on the U.S. 95 interstate in the middle of Las Vegas, nearly midnight, on my way home from a very long and tiring sixteen hour day, when I finally surrendered my exhausted, broken self to a God that I’d been running from my whole adult life.
            Five years.
            Wow.
            To say that a lot’s happened in that time would be an understatement.
That’s what first got me started thinking about writing this. It didn’t seem right to let the anniversary pass without saying something, but again, I just didn’t know what to say or where to start. This year has been a little…crazy.
I guess the best place to start is where I left off nineteen months ago…
 
            My last log entry was all about learning to embrace the current period of my life which was marked by a distinct shadow of loneliness. I was still struggling with God’s call to be a husband and father, yet still waiting for that special woman that God, in His infinite wisdom and perfect timing, had not yet seen fit to bring across my path. I also wrote plainly and honestly about my struggle with pornography addiction and my recent defeats in that ongoing spiritual battle.
           Now flash forward a year to February 8, 2025. I received a text from a brother at church telling me about a young lady he’s friends with on Facebook. He included a link to her profile and said that she, too, is single and looking for a spouse, and that she currently lives in Finland. My immediate thought was, “All right! This is what I’m talking about: a married friend helping out his single friend! Why did it take three years for somebody in my church family to FINALLY hook me up???” My second thought was, “Ehhhh…nothing’s probably going to come of this. She’s on the other side of the world, so the most I can hope for is just another online friend who will eventually stop speaking to me altogether because we don’t have anything in common.”
            That night after work I sat down at my computer and pulled up Facebook. I clicked on her profile, and the first detail that struck me was her profile pic. She was cuter than I imagined – a lot cuter, in fact. I had not really pictured anything specific as far as physical appearance, but this lovely young, round face with caramel-colored skin; wide, brown eyes; a charmingly flat nose (which I later dubbed “tomato nose”); and long, black hair tucked underneath a baseball cap, looking back at me from my computer screen was definitely more beautiful than I was expecting. The pic was clearly a candid, taken in what appeared to be a train car or a city bus, and she was looking straight at the camera, with just a hint of a smile on her full, brown lips. The pic was a closeup, with only her head, shoulders, and a little of the background visible, and she was wearing a jean jacket to go with the baseball cap. She looked to be no older than late twenties which was another mark in the “plus” column for me. (The ideal age range for my future wife: 27-33.)
            Next, I scrolled through her public posts on her profile feed. This, too, pleasantly surprised me. To say that her Christian faith – as well as her godly personality – shone forth from the array of daily Bible verse posts and quotes from various religious writers and pastors would be a severe understatement. Even better: the verses were quoted from the King James 1611 translation. (Another of my prayer requests: my future wife be of the same conviction as me and my church, which is that the KJV 1611 is the only correct, complete and truly preserved word of God in modern English.)
            I clicked on one of the links in her bio to check out the local church there in Espoo (pronounced “es-pō”), Finland, where she’s a member. Yet another huge checkmark in the “plus” column: fundamental, independent Baptist. Amen!
            One odd detail: her name. The profile said “Hadasshah Maricel Luzon”, and while that first name sounded familiar, I figured it must be Filipino. Eh, okay. Maybe she goes by her middle name which is a lot prettier: Maricel. I pulled up her profile pic again and said the name aloud: Maricel. Yeah, I liked that name.
            Still…Finland? Really, LORD??? Almost three million people right here in Las Vegas, at least half of which should statistically be women, and if even just half of that number are in the age range I’m looking for then surely there should be a perfectly beautiful, Christian, Baptist single woman who I could go on a date with face to face. Even if I had to start off this relationship long distance, You couldn’t pick someone in the same country? It’s gotta be the other side of the world??? C’mon, Lord, gimme a break!
            To be honest, that one fact almost made me close the web browser and not even say hello. Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not interested in a long distance relationship. Besides, I had always pictured my future wife as the same skin color and nationality as me: plain, boring, white American. Yes, Hadasshah (Maricel) was pretty, but I didn’t know anything about Filipino culture or their country. And how did she end up in Finland anyway? That’s at least as far away – if not farther – from the Philippines as the United States is from Finland.
            And yet…
           What did I have to lose? Worst case scenario, we text for a few days – maybe a week or two – and if we don’t hit it off then no big deal. I’ll have yet one more online friend, and who knows? Maybe she’ll have a friend in her church – or, better yet, a friend here in the states – that will be the one that God has chosen for me.
            I debated another minute or two, and then I closed the browser. I needed some time to craft the right introduction, and it was already late. I was tired, and I had church in the morning. Maybe tomorrow afternoon, during my weekly Bible study phone call with my friend Jon, I could get his opinion of Maricel and what I should say to introduce myself.
 
           Flash forward again to today. It’s exactly 68 days until my flight to Bohol, Philippines, and 72 days until our wedding in San Miguel, the village (town?) where Maricel is from. Her birthday is November 26th, and she wanted to get married on that day. (I had no objection. Makes it easier for me to remember two important events but only one date each year. Yay!) Yes, Maricel and I hit it off right away. No, our courtship has not been conventional and ordinary in any way. Yes, the long distance relationship is by no means easy, and no, we’re not crazy. Yes, we’re each marrying someone whom we’ve only seen and spoke to on a computer or phone screen every day, at least twice a day, for the last 7 ½ months. No, Maricel has never been to the United States. The day after we’re married I will be filling out a spouse visa application to begin the process of getting her to the states legally so we can be together permanently. How long will that take, you ask? Prayerfully, only a few months, but possibly up to a year. In the meantime, we will be resuming our long distance relationship, albeit as a married couple. We’ll also use every available opportunity during our ten day honeymoon in Bohol to build new memories that will sustain us during that second time apart. (And, prayerfully, get a jump start on God’s command in Genesis 1:28 & 9:1.)
            As I look back over the last seven months, those two verses that I quoted at the beginning of this entry keep coming to mind. For 3 ½ years, ever since I first realized that God had put a desire for marriage and family in my heart, I had been filled with nothing but doubt and fear. That calling seemed impossible, for the deck was stacked against me in every conceivable way. I couldn’t imagine any young woman who would accept my past, my ongoing struggle with sin and temptation, and my age, and still be willing to say, “I do”. That just didn’t seem even the slightest bit realistic. And, as each year went by, as I crept closer and closer to that big 5-0 birthday milestone, and as I continued to suffer more spiritual defeats than victories against sin, I became more and more depressed as I watched others in my family and church family get boyfriends/girlfriends, or get engaged, or get married – all with seemingly no time or trouble at all. (It also didn’t help that my social media feed was filled with posts from happily married Christian couples that I had begun following in an effort to inspire me to stay faithful while waiting for God to fulfill His promise to me. More often than not, it just made me even more bitter and depressed.)
            During one of his Sunday School lessons to the men a couple years ago, my pastor commented that God could create the prefect mate for each of us and present her to us just like He did with Eve to Adam. I remember thinking at the time that that was a bit ridiculous. “It’s just that easy, eh, LORD?” I thought sullenly. I secretly scoffed at the idea of a “soul mate”, that one man or woman who is supposedly ideal for each of us, each spouse complementing the other in his/her strengths and weaknesses. I’d always mocked that Hollywood cliché that two people could experience “love at first sight”. What hogwash and nonsense! You can’t just meet someone for the first time and immediately know that he/she is the one you were meant to be with for the rest of your life? Even though my parents and other older couples in my church (including my pastor) had testified that that’s pretty much how they met the husband/wife God had chosen for them, I still didn’t believe it. (My dad met my mom for the first time at the wedding of mutual friends, and he was immediately smitten with her to the extreme that he canceled his date that night with the girl he was currently with, and the rest is history.)
            You know, God really does have a sense of humor.
           For me, it wasn’t love at first sight. It was more like, “Hhhmmm. There’s something about that face in that profile pic, and there’s something about her personality in her Facebook feed. I want to get to know her more.” Sure enough, within a week of that introduction on Sunday, February 9th, after multiple, daily texted conversations, I knew for certain: I was in love, and she was most definitely the one that God had chosen for me to be my “help-meet”. She took a little more time to come around to the same conclusion, but I was patient, and I took the time to get to know her while I waited for her to get on the same page as me. I had no idea back then exactly how we were going to get married, or where we would live, or how any of those logistical matters would be ironed out. I just knew by the end of February that God had finally – FINALLY – answered my prayer, and since He brought us together then He would work it all out.
             By April we were officially a couple, and on May 29th we both agreed to get married. I had already bought plane tickets to the Philippines in order to meet her for the first time and celebrate her birthday together. But we decided that was also the perfect time to get married since all of her family would be there. And by the end of May, of course, after much prayer on both our parts, she knew that I was the one God had chosen for her. Therefore, November 26th, 2025 is the prefect date and time, and it’s now only 72 days away!
           What about the engagement ring, you ask? Yes, I’m still going to do an old fashioned proposal, and yes, I have bought the engagement ring and both our wedding bands. Shopping jewelry on Amazon via a long-distance video chat is another experience I never thought I would have in my lifetime. In the end, though, only my wedding band was bought on Amazon. I went to a jewelry store in Idaho while on vacation in June to buy her rings. (My mom went with me to give her valuable advice.) And no, Maricel has not yet seen those two rings, although I have given her brief, teasing glimpses from time to time during our video calls since then.
         And while the long distance relationship was not my first choice, it has been somewhat easier than I thought it would be, mainly due to modern technology. Facebook messenger is a godsend, and I plan to send a thank-you note to Mark Zuckerberg for his invention. (Maricel told me to say that last part. I’m sharing my screen with her as I write this.) And even though we clicked with each other right away, our courtship has not been without its rough spots. I almost ruined the whole thing back in June, and I suffered a three day silence from Maricel that felt a month long to me. It was the most depressed and devastated emotionally that I’ve ever been in my life, and I have also never prayed and begged God for one thing so much so often since. (Yes, she did forgive me and give me a second chance, obviously. Praise God!)
            One other aspect of this whole new adventure: I’m learning a new language. Maricel has been teaching me Tagalog (pronounced “tǔh-gǒwlǔg”) so that I can at least talk in a few simple phrases with her family when it’s time to meet them in person. (In the meantime, Google translate is also a godsend for texting with her mother and siblings.)
              “…what hath God wrought!”
              “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…”
            Part of me still thinks I’m crazy. Who flies halfway around the world to a country he’s never been to before to meet a woman for the first time face to face in order to propose to and marry her??? Who gets married at 47 with the plan and desire to start a family??? By the time my firstborn is in high school I will probably have to schedule my hip replacement surgery so that I’m able to be present at his/her graduation. I’ll most likely not live to see any of my grandchildren. This whole love story has been so crazy and unconventional from the start that not even a room full of Hollywood screenwriters could come up with a scenario like this. I’m living it, and even I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief some days when I wake up and greet my beautiful fiancé on my computer screen while sipping my coffee before we have Bible study together.
                I don’t feel 47. I feel 25 again, as if my whole life is still ahead of me and the last 29 years that the locusts consumed never happened. Aside from my ongoing struggle with type 2 diabetes, I’m in the best physical shape and health of my entire life. Maricel thinks I look like a young Bruce Willis (especially when I wear my blue-tinted shades while driving). And, by the way, guess what Maricel’s only request of the Lord was of her future husband (other than the fact that he be a saved, godly man): blue eyes. (She’s also obsessed with my pointed, European nose. She calls it my “tower of Lebanon”.) We both are looking forward to having as many children as God allows us. And no, we have no idea just yet how we’re going to afford them. But that’s for God to guide us and provide for us as we reach that part of our journey together down the road. I’ve tried to analyze all of this and figure out exactly how God could restore those years lost to the locusts of sin, but I can’t figure it out. He just does, that’s all.
                The one thing that still utterly amazes and humbles me is that Maricel (who, by the way, will be 34 on our wedding day), read chapter 31 of my travel log before she even said hi to me. (I had forgotten that there’s a link to my website in my Facebook bio.) When she told me this a couple weeks after we met, I was stunned. My biggest fear in meeting my future wife was my past. Would she truly accept me as a new creature in Christ yet still struggling with my flesh and with temptation? This was the biggest of all my doubts about this calling God had set before me, and I was bracing myself for that fourth or fifth date conversation where I would finally lay out all of it for her and then wait anxiously for a day or two as she decided whether or not to continue the relationship. I was certain that she would say, “Thanks, but no thanks. I wish you the best and God bless.” And then I wouldn’t ever see her again, and I was back to a life of single loneliness again.
              But when Maricel just matter-of-factly quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17 to me right after telling me she had read the most recent chapter of my blog where I laid completely bare my sinful past and my struggle with pornography addiction, and she still wanted to say hi and get to know me, well…that’s when I knew for sure. She was not only more mature in her faith and walk with the LORD than me (she was saved in college in 2010), but she also had accepted God’s choice for her husband, and she was willing to trust Him to equip her for that calling. In one simple stroke, God had completely erased my biggest fear and source of my doubt about this new future. And, in the days, weeks, and months since, as Maricel and I have grown closer together and deeper in love, I am continually amazed and humbled at what “God hath wrought” in both of our lives!
              As much as I have grown spiritually in the last 5 years, and as much as I have come to know God daily through Bible study and prayer, I still don’t quite understand His mercy and His love for a wretched sinner like me. There was so many times in the last 3 ½ years when I stumbled, backslid, threw temper tantrums that would make any 2-year old proud, and I was sure I had forfeited this particular blessing. I was sure that, like Israel in the book of Isaiah, God would deny me a wife and family because I just couldn’t stay faithful to Him and resist sin. As I said earlier, there were far more defeats than victories in those numerous spiritual battles.
                But, somehow, for some reason I cannot fathom other than that He is faithful even when I am not, God didn’t allow my sin, or my doubt, or my fear to get in the way of His plan for my life. I still can’t fully wrap my mind around this, and I’ve long since given up trying to analyze it. Instead, when I answer that video call each morning after waking up, and I sit down at my computer with my steaming mug of coffee, with Maricel’s brown, beautiful, round face and beaming smile looking back at me, we bow our heads and I thank God for bringing us together, and then we commence our daily Bible reading and talk about the LORD. Maricel is everything I had secretly hoped for (godly, young, beautiful, and smart) and nothing that I had expected (never been married, no children, and a full time career as a nurse). Sadly, though, she's not a "Star Trek" fan or a video game nerd, but that's ok. For some reason, those little details don't matter as much as I once thought they would. Go figure.
                 In 68 days I will board an international flight, and I will finally see her face to face, and I will be able to kiss her lovely, tomato nose, and hold her in my arms, and fall to one knee to hold out that ring. And then, 72 days from now, surrounded by all of her family and friends, in a little church in San Miguel, Bohol, Philippines, we will stand at the altar and say our vows, and be joined together as “one flesh”.
                  And a whole new chapter of our lives will begin.
 
            There’s a little bit more to talk about, in regards to all of this, mainly the event that happened in Utah last week on September 10th. There was also an event that happened to me on the night of September 1st that has also left me in a pensive mood, but I’m going to save all of that for the next log entry. Instead, I will close with this. As many times as I despised hearing this piece of advice from others over the last 3 ½ years, it really was true and sound: God’s timing is never our timing. Whatever state of life that you are currently in, it may seem as if God is not listening to any of your requests. It may seem as if He uninterested or uncaring about your loneliness, your struggle with sin, your sadness, your doubt, and your fear. But you know, deep down in your soul, that that’s not true.
            Like Rebekah at the well in Genesis 24, you are serving faithfully in your church every day. You are reading and studying your Bible and praying every day. Despite giving in to sin and temptation, you are striving to maintain a close walk with God and confess your sin and ask for forgiveness daily. Rebekah served her family every day by going to the well at the same time every morning to draw water. She, too, probably longed for a husband, wondering as each year passed, if she would end up alone and childless. Then, one day when she least expected it, a stranger stood at the well and asked her to draw water for him. Rebekah not only agreed, but was also willing to draw water for the camels also. And the next morning she was all packed and on her way to meet her new husband, a man she had never even seen and knew nothing about!
            God does hear every whispered prayer, every longing sigh, and He sees every tear caused by heartache and loneliness. He said of Adam, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18) If you, too, feel that unique void within you that not even a close walk with God and fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ can fill, then trust that God has already chosen a spouse for you, and He will bring you that special one who is perfect for you and no one else! And yes, you will know right away if he/she is the one. But first you must be patient and wait on Him. Stay faithful in your daily trip to the well wherever God has placed you. Don’t try to rush ahead or force anything on your own. You’ll only end up frustrated and confused and, possibly, bitter. (Look what happened when Rebekah made that mistake with Jacob in Genesis 27. She never saw her son again after that.)
            God will answer your prayer, and He will do it in the most unexpected and surprising way. And, like me, you will be left shaking your head in disbelief and wonderment. And you will wonder how you could have ever doubted Him as you eagerly plan for a whole new adventure!
             Oh, by the way, that name "Hadasshah"? That was Esther's Jewish name. Maricel's first name really is Maricel, and she used Esther's true name just for her Facebook profile. That's her favorite Bible story.
             Soli deo gloria! Amen!