The month of September is a very special one to me; partly because it is my beloved husband’s birth month but majorly because it is our friendiversary! On September 19, 2020, my husband and I celebrated three years of amazing friendship… This is a celebratory post as our wedding anniversary is just a few days away…

It was September 19, 2017; a lovely day. I picked up my phone, and for some reason which I couldn’t fathom, I felt the need to check my Facebook account. It had been days since I last visited Facebook, and I had a couple of notifications and friend requests. If only I knew what God was working out! Among my friend requests was one that stood out to me; it was from Moses Akazue. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his friend request… I did a quick profile check and discovered that it was his birthday. What would be a better birthday gift for him than accepting his friend request? So…you guessed right, I accepted his friend request and being my pleasant self, I sent him a birthday wish as well. It was nothing extraordinary—just a simple birthday wish…which he responded to. On my birthday, which was the next month, he returned the favour, and that was it…

For several years before 2018, I had prayed for a Godly husband – and in fact, it appeared on my prayer list every year! Every year except 2018. Looking back, I am amazed how articulately and beautifully God had orchestrated our meeting and written our love story. I had deliberately omitted prayers for a life partner from my list in 2018, and I had my reasons. 2018 was going to be a crucial year, I had thought. I had recently commenced my PhD programme, and it was more tasking than I had anticipated. I outrightly told God that even if the man I was to marry appeared, I would not be ready for him. God surely has an interesting sense of humour. I say this because Moses and I became “friends” (real friends, I mean – not just Facebook friends) in January 2018! Well, not exactly… I had known Moses for almost a lifetime – but from a distance. His family was a prominent one; his dad and my dad were good friends, and we had a handful of mutual friends. What beats my imagination till date was why we never met even by chance. Coincidentally, I had several opportunities of meeting him but nah, being the gentlegirlie (or should I rather say shy girlie) that I was, I declined all.

Fast forward to January 2018… When Moses reached out to me again, it was on a friendly note, and there was an instant connection between us. I did not read any meaning to our friendship, though. Our communication was random and infrequent. His casual hi turned to more frequent messages and then calls…but he never gave me the impression he was even slightly attracted to me. I was not attracted to him, either. At about the same time, I started noticing I was developing emotions for Moses…and it was getting out of hand. I tried to conceal it and pretend like it was not there…but I couldn’t. The more I prayed, the deeper my emotions would get. In my human wisdom, I decided I would guard my heart and keep a respectful distance from Moses. I stopped taking his calls…after all, I was too busy with school work, you know… I would take days to respond to his message, and when I did…I would apologize profusely explaining to him that I was a very busy somebody… The more I was playing “hide and seek”, the more God was dealing with my heart….so by force oh, I started praying about marriage.

All through this time, God had started working on my heart. Out of nowhere and over time, I noticed that I had very strong emotions for Moses, and it grew worse every day. “Was I in love?” I wondered to myself. I was far away from home, so I didn’t have family members I could physically talk to… When we spoke over the phone, I just felt that my folks could not understand the “Twi” I was speaking to them (how can you explain to your folks over the phone that you are in love with someone you had not met?). I learnt to pray more… I took my confused feelings to God in prayers, and on one occasion, God spoke to me. He told me that Moses was the one for me. I was really upset that day, I must say. I never finished that prayer session: I quickly got up, showered, got dressed and went to school. “That was not the plan, Lord”, I thought within myself. I had always prayed for God’s perfect will to be done in my life, and clearly, this was one of those times.

“Praying through” is a concept I had always heard as a child that was born and raised in a Pastor’s home, especially one from the Apostolic Faith Church. After I got saved, I learnt the importance of praying about everything and committing every step into God’s hand. The first time in my life I remembered praying through was when I had to decide on a course to study in the University. I had several options (I did well in the arts, science and social science subjects). People had different recommendations based on my skills and disposition: law, medicine, accounting, engineering. My parents had their own preferences too. I knew it was a crucial decision, so I prayed, and God directed me. He spoke to me through recurring dreams at the time, and I told God that parental consent would be the ultimate confirmation that he had spoken to me. I chose to study Biochemistry at the university. My decision was not without several oppositions. “Bio-what?” “Is that a profession?” Some people asked me. “Will you find a job when you are done?” “What a waste of precious talent!” People said several things… I got to the University, and things were really tough… At some point, I wondered if I heard from God. Well, the end of the story was I graduated with an excellent grade… God proved himself. Little victories give way to more remarkable victories.

Moses did not propose to me immediately after God had spoken to me. As a matter of fact, it took a while before he did. Was I anxious about it? Absolutely! I frantically prayed to God to take away the emotions that were growing so fiercely in me. The timing was crucial, it was not the best time to be in love by my estimation. How thankful I am to God for unanswered prayers! The strange thing was, I always felt at peace whenever I prayed about him or for him. It was such a sweet feeling…

On my part, I tried to cut Moses off on several occasions… God never allowed it. On the contrary, the young man was unrelenting… He just kept reaching out…though he didn’t show any signs he was interested in me. He was just being friendly… Chai! I got to a stage that I resolved the best thing was to delete his number and focus on my life. How can God say he is my husband, and he is not saying anything? In fact, I set the date I was going to delete his number in my head… I was taking care of my life and safeguarding my future. Now that I think of it, God must have sat on his throne laughing at the drama we were acting. I later discovered that while I was thinking of how to delete his number, my husband had prayed about me, was convinced beyond every doubt that I was his wife and was simply waiting for the perfect time and way to propose… The irony of life! A day before I was meant to delete his number, Moses proposed in the most romantic way that was possible given our distance.

As you can tell, the waiting time for me was not so long (though it seemed like eternity at the time). It is worth mentioning that all through the waiting time, we remained great friends. I never knew his intentions neither did he know how I felt about him – until he proposed!

When Moses proposed, it was a huge surprise to me – I can’t even explain why that was the case. Deep down, I knew it was coming but not that soon. I knew what my answer was immediately he proposed; God had just confirmed to me that He had spoken to me really…but I didn’t feel the time was right. So yeah, I needed to be very sure I was ready to take the step – and to take it with him. I prayed earnestly about it, and within a short time, God gave me so much peace about it that I had an answer for him. Over the years, I have learnt to pray about everything and anything. I am a firm believer in the power of prayers. I know God speaks to people because he has spoken clearly to me on several occasions. Being fully aware of how important marriage is, I was conscientious not to rush into making hasty decisions. I gave Moses my response afterwards…. At this time, we had never met physically as we were worlds apart. It was literally impossible for us to meet physically (I was in Accra and he in Glasgow). I had always envisioned meeting a man the old-school one-on-one way, falling in love and living happily ever after……but nah, God had written my love story differently.

One of the most important lessons I learnt from this is that God speaks to us in different ways, at different situations. As a child, I heard testimonies of how different people got saved: some people said they saw the cross, others saw a white light, some saw scrolls of their past deeds… When I got saved, I felt peace in my heart. No light, no cross, no nothing… Just peace… I wasn’t actively praying about marriage when my husband reached out to me. I was neck-deep into my PhD program…far away from home…in a place where it was most unlikely to meet a young man who I would like. I was focused on pleasing God and doing His will, even if it meant remaining single… When God spoke, I knew it. I was sure that it was God who had spoken. We must be sensitive to know when God speaks. An analogy I used to explain this is….in my home, we learnt to understand non-verbal communications and gestures a lot. If someone knocks on the door, you can immediately tell who it was…if it was dad, mum or any of my siblings. We could even tell who was coming when we heard footsteps. When I prayed through to my husband, I didn’t have dreams like when I was to pick my course of study (or other similar situations in the past). God spoke differently… Still, I knew it was Him.

After we had agreed to get married, several thoughts ran through my head. As I had never seen him physically (except through pictures and video calls), I wondered: “What if he is short? (I always fancied getting married to a tall man). What if he walks funnily? What if…this and that??” This reminds me of the song “oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear… All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer”. All my fears were for nothing. When we eventually met ehn…it was explosive! In fact, let me end the long story here. I should write a book on this subject someday…

Categories: My lifestyle