It was just a normal day, logged onto some social media to see what was going on in the world and so say hi to all my friends back home. Decided to jump onto Facebook and waste my day looking at all the amazing things that people are doing while just wishing I was as cool as they were. Another baby! Oh look who is getting married? Oh, they have such a cute dog, and it even chases after cats.. Just so much to look at when you login, that it pretty much took over my life for a few hours. But then there was an interesting story that came up in my news feed.

I would be lying if the story was the only thing that caught my eye, the girl who posted it was just drop dead gorgeous! So I clicked over to her page to see who this girl was, and all over her page was Jesus Christ!! My heart was just pounding, I didn’t know it was possible to find a girl that beautiful so in love with Jesus!!

So I decided to try and be brave and approach her with a quick little friendly personal message about the article to see if she would bite the bait. I knew I would never have a chance at somebody like her but you never know if you don’t go fishing. So threw the line out to see what I would catch. She actually replied back… WHAAAAAT??? She spoke to me! She actually replied to me and wrote words!!! SHE LOVES ME!!!! HAHA, that was my hope at least. That little bait worked. Now keep in mind I am extremely scared of beautiful women. I normally don’t even talk to them because they scare me for some reason and I know they have guys drooling over them all the time, so would rather just stay away. But I think I was extremely drawn to how much she loved Jesus and her page just permeated her love for God. She was so beautiful and everything about her caught my eye.

We continued to talk and the more we wrote back and forth, the more this girl would just take a piece of my heart. But I was fully willing to allow it because she was everything that I was looking for in a wife. How well we connected was just mind boggling and the more I prayed the more she seemed to be the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. When I looked at her profile she had so many beautiful pictures of herself, some videos of her singing, and even her dad was linked into her page which was filled with amazing dad complements. Everything about her seemed way to good to be true. But when it comes to God, all things are possible; even girls who are willing to put God before their beauty and talents.

So after a while I really felt like it was time to take the step… To start skyping and having more of a face to face conversation with each other. So I asked if we could skype because I was super excited to finally see her face to face. But then I was thrown for a loop, she flips the conversation to something else, avoiding having to see me face to face. Which I was ok with, because I didn’t want to rush something if she wasn’t ready.

So we continued to talk and get to know each other more week after week. There were times where she had guys contacting her and she would point them over to me to help encourage them in the faith and guide them to the love of Christ. I thought, what an amazing team we could make for Christ! I remember telling her one time as a compliment, that she was just way to good to be true. God really made her to be such an amazing woman of God and I was so blessed to even be part of her life.

And for some reason, she got really mad at me? She started to defend the fact that she was a real person, so again I just stepped back and try to reiterate the fact that I fully believed that and that I said that as a complement. For me, I am the type of person that will trust you unless you break my trust. And I fully trusted her because she never gave me any reason not to trust her. But we moved on, continued to work through issues and move forward. I continued to fall in love with even her imperfections and wanted more than just messaging each other through Facebook. Messaging always seems to lose way to much communication and I am more of a face to face person because it enables me to read expressions instead of just guessing at what somebody is thinking.

But something interesting happened, one of our mutual Facebook friends started to question her authenticity and who she was. He started to ask me questions and doing some research because what she was telling him wasn’t checking out. He said “I think she is a catfish”. In my head I had no idea what that was, so had to Google it to get up to speed with this internet lingo. Basically it is somebody using somebody else’s identity online usually for some type of purpose.

But for me that was impossible to fathom because of her love for Jesus Christ. Everything about her seemed full of the Holy Spirit and extremely authentic. Through everything that she wrote, she loved God more than most everybody that I knew. She was just sold out, so to think that she was a catfish just didn’t register. How could somebody love God so much yet lie about her identity? She or even He, would have been the best catfish ever!   The profile pictures that were on the page, seemed really personable and there were TONS of them! She even had videos of her singing new songs. And her dads profile?   Plus all that with actually messaging back and forth!! If she was a catfish, wow… she deserved a metal for how good she was! I just couldn’t believe it, and again had no reason not believe her.

So with us, things kept growing, and when we had conversations they were amazing! At this point I think I had fallen in love with who she was in Christ, and at the same time extremely attracted to her… which was not a normal thing for me. And when I talked to her it seemed like our feelings were mutual. So I felt like it was time again to bring up the subject to talk face to face and really get to know each other. To see how we react to each other in circumstances. To be able to see her smile, to see her cry, and to be able to look into her eyes and see how amazing God is through her being created! So I asked her if we could Skype.

But then something happened that really through me off and I didn’t know what to do. It took the focus off seeing each other into this new finding. She began to explain how one of her ex-boyfriends came back into the picture, and since he was local she could see him more than me being over in New Zealand. She went on to explain how she wasn’t fully over him and how if I was closer then things would be easier. She kept saying if only I was closer then we could really build something. I was totally ok with moving to where she was to start a family with her and living a life for Jesus but I was still extremely confused on why every time I mentioned Skype, some other drama would come up taking the focus off that and putting it on me trying to be there for her through the hard times. Trying to be patient through this would last for a little bit, but in the back of my mind the words of this mutual friend started to pop up more and more. He asked me a question about our relationship and if we had ever Skyped. I found myself feeling like a total idiot because, here I have given my heart to a girl who I have never seen face to face. A girl that I was fighting for and doing whatever I could to make things work between us, but really didn’t have any thing to stand on when it came to that simple question.

So it was time to really figure all this out. Who she was seemed amazing to me and exactly what I wanted in a wife, but she wasn’t willing to meet me halfway in the relationship so I decided to step back and give her some space to think about. I had explained to her how she had my everything and I was willing to be all in but really wanted her to pray about things. She took it in and I gave her space.

About two weeks later, I looked at her Facebook page to find out that her profile said she was in a relationship with another guy, and not her old boyfriend. I didn’t say anything, I just wanted to keep in prayer and see what God was doing. That changed, and I sent her a message to check up on her. At that point I felt like it was time to fully let go to move on and let her seek out God in prayer. But as we were talking there was another old boyfriend from 4 years ago that came back to were she lived and asked her to marry her. Her profile changed to engaged with a picture of them two. But doing a little detective work I looked this guy up only to find that it was a brand new account. So either he wasn’t on Facebook and just decided to get on, or somebody made a new account to try and make people think that this was a real engagement.

I had to contact her and see what was up. She gave me a story that seemed to make sense, but still had to many holes in it. So at this point I felt like God was saying it was time to move on and focus on ministry instead of chasing this girl. So that was what I did, I said my goodbyes and stopped talking to her. So again, giving her the benefit of the doubt I had no reason to believe her to be a catfish. I didn’t want to believe that somebody who talked about Jesus that much could ever be so deceptive in Jesus name. Just the wisdom that she carried in God would be life changing to any person.

About a couple weeks later something happened that really started to make me question all of this.. Her page still spoke of amazing inspiration for Christ and I wanted to see how she was doing. So I went back to find her page and it was gone. Did she block me? I wasn’t sure what was going on, so went back to see if our messages were still there and everything was gone. Our full conversation was deleted by Facebook. So I went to see if her dad’s page was there and it too was gone. Her very existence seemed to disappear as if it was report to Facebook and deleted.

So I decided to go back and talk with a few people and they all said she was a catfish and Facebook deleted her account. Till this day I still never had full confirmation on this girl and if she really was a real person, or if she as a catfish. My only connection with her was Facebook and her account was gone! So, what do you think?

Do you think there is somebody out there posing as a catfish? Somebody using God’s name in order fulfill her agenda? Or do you think she was real?

This is a true story that has rocked my world and taught me so much about love and forgiveness. I don’t hold an ounce of bitterness to this girl real or fake because I know that God uses the good and the bad for His glory. My trust is in Jesus Christ and I know that He has a plan for me, and if this girl wasn’t in the plan I can only be thankful for His protection over my life. I tell this story in full openness so that God is glorified in my weakness, in my stupidity, and in my imperfections. Nobody in this world is perfect and everybody needs God’s grace in their life.

The question is are you willing to forgive those that have hurt you? Those who have shattered your life? Just remember, We have been forgiven much so that we can forgive others, no matter how much damage they may cause. God’s forgiveness far outweighs the total amount of forgiveness of this world put together.  He held nothing back!

I hope this transparency will encourage you to turn to God and find a life full of love and forgiveness. God Bless you.