Chapter 2 of Gio’s Story
After two weeks of building our friendship I felt so emotional. I felt happy, excited, and found myself smiling everyday. Andrew shared a worship song that He wrote with me. And on my birthday he sang for me. It was so special to me.
All of the checklist criteria of a man that I wanted to marry, I found in Andrew. He is not perfect, but God had an amazing story, how he brought us together, and how God protected my emotional wellbeing.
In the beginning of our relationship I already began asking the hard questions to Andrew. I didn’t want to play around or date around. I was struggling with my emotions. I was fearful of falling in love, but that his feelings might not be mutual. I asked God to take control of my emotions.
So I went to Jesus and gave Him all my feelings and emotions. I said to God, “Please take over all my emotional wellbeing, and take away any feelings if it’s not in the right place.
I remembered when I asked Andrew, “Do you have timetable for marriage?” (I just wanted to know his plan and intention about our communication, as I had never held daily chatting conversations with the opposite gender before this time.) He replied, “Nope, I don’t have any timetable. I am letting the Holy Spirit lead me in His timing.”
When I discovered this, I said to God, “Thank you God for Andrew. I don’t want to push forward with intentional communication anymore. I want to respect my future husband and be sensitive to You.”
I pulled myself up and I said to myself, “Gio, he just wants to be a friend to you. Please, put in your head and your heart: no expectations. Just be a friend.”
But Andrew kept being gentle, respectfully pursuing me. Later, we found a connection with Andrew’s two friends – Scott and his wife, Jenny – that attended his church. When I learned more about them, I remembered something. I grabbed my journal. I wanted to show Andrew what I received during the teaching time from my DTS (discipleship training school) season in 2017. I was shocked! I found something I wrote that God spoke to me through a dream.
It was January 30th, 2017. I wrote “I met a bearded, handsome white man.”
I had totally forgotten that I wrote down that dream. I knew it was God showing it to me again. I kept it in my heart. I was not emotional anymore. I wanted to have a pure friendship and believed God was in control.
Because of that, I kept responding to Andrew and believed that God had a purpose in our meeting. After 4 months of building friendship with Andrew, my core team from a Ladies Bible Reading group asked me, “How is your friendship season?” I reported that we planned video calls two or three times a week and shared all the good things from Andrew.
They said, “This is too much. What is the purpose of your video calls?”
I said, “Just being friends. And he wants to learn to speak Bahasa (the Indonesian language).”
They answered, “Oh, he can be learn by himself from Duolingo.” They are like big sisters to me and wanted to protect my heart. They gave me a lot of wisdom and advice.
So I spoke to Andrew and said, “We should adjust our plans. Let’s have video calls only once a week.”
The ladies also advised me to ask Scott’s wife (Jenny) about Andrew. I thought this was a great idea, so I emailed Jenny and asked her questions about Andrew.
The questions I asked Jenny included the following:
- Is he a man worth getting to know?
- What cautions or red flags do I need to know about him?
- What is his reputation like?
- If you have a daughter or a sister, would you encourage them to get to know him?
(Hahaha….I am sorry, Andrew, I asked this. This is womens’ conversation!)
But these questions helped me to have confidence to continue my friendship with Andrew. I knew him more and wanted to bless him more as a brother in Christ – no matter what the ending of the story of our friendship looked like. I wanted to show God’s love and build him up.
I encourage anyone who has a long distance relationship to ask these questions to his/her friends.
After I asked these questions, I found that my feelings were right and God was in control. He helped me in so many ways. Love always carries risk. I said to God, “I will take the risk. A ‘spirit of fear’ is not from God.”
Andrew & Gio 