My favorite testimony is how Martha and I met. Some people wonder if there are such things as soul mates and destinies. I know the answer for me is undoubtedly and emphatically "yes!" I am sure that the events that took place in bringing us together match those of others who believed that God's fate brought them together. I am equally sure that there are many who think such ideas are the stuff of vivid imaginations. My story is dedicated to my bride on her birthday and to all who believe and don't believe in miracles.
I first met Martha in the summer of 1995 on my front doorstep in Douglas, Arizona while I was on summer break from Oral Roberts University. The youth from First Assembly of God in Douglas Arizona, had been invited over to a pool party at my parent's home. The party was sponsored by the youth pastor at First Assembly. Martha happened to come early to the party and was the first one I met that summer. I answered the door bell and invited her in and both of us were a little clumsy as to what to do and say next. We made small talk and when the talk abruptly ended with an awkward silence I had her wait in the living room. I wish I could say that it was love at first sight, but nothing in that first encounter signaled any future for the two of us.
The party was fun and it gave me a chance to meet several youth who would become close friends. It also afforded me a chance to reacquaint myself with childhood friends whom I had not seen since my family had moved to Massachusetts. Who would have ever thought that years later that Martha and I would be working with many of them as youth co-leaders and workers? It was probably the most fun summer break I ever had and it all began at that pool party.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Martha. Her mom passed away that summer of breast cancer. Many times I think about what it would have been like to know Sister Carmen and call her "Mom." She was a great woman of God and a hero of the faith. She believed in God and did not leave this earth with a defeatist or "woe is me" attitude. She fought and won the battle for the eternal fate of her soul. I only wish I would have known her personally. All that I know of her is what I have been told by others and what I see in Martha and my boys. I deprived myself of the opportunity of looking into her eyes when my dad asked me if I wanted to go with him to pray for her. The crazy thing is that she had visited my dad's church in Douglas (Templo Betel) when I was a boy. Martha's mom would came down from San Pedro, California to visit family in the Douglas area just about every year. Sister Carmen no doubt had brought Martha to church and I had most likely sat across from her in service or in Sunday School. Now, here we were years later and Martha's family had called for my dad to go to her bedside to pray for her. If only I had not been so selfish that day! I was too comfortable kicking back that I didn't leave room for meeting such a wonderful woman. In the end, it may have not been meant to be, but the memory still haunts me and reminds me of just how important visitation requests are. I know without a doubt that I will see my mother-in-law again and I will thank her for blessing me with her daughter.
After summer, I left back for Oral Roberts to continue my studies. Martha would later be awarded a six-month internship to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The time away from home would do her some good as she moved on with her life. She would write to me at school sending me postcards from Florida and I, the typical guy, would not write back. But I did look forward to catching up with her and my Douglas friends on my next break. Friends is all we were and all I ever thought we would be. Even when asked by my mom what I thought of her, I simply dismissed the whole idea.
As the years passed, our friendship grew as did my family's closeness to her. While I was at school in Oklahoma, Mary Louise and my mother would invite Martha over to the house and on excursions to nearby Sierra Vista and mountain parks, our Sky Islands, which surround the Douglas area. I remember hearing them tell me how nice of a girl she was. I could sense the undertones in their words and would walk away saying "we're only friends, there is nothing between us now and there never will be."
I was pretty confident in my assertion that I would marry someone back in Massachusetts or in Oklahoma. So when my mom hooked me up with a date with Martha during Spring Break in 1996, I was secure that nothing would result between her and me. It turns out that Martha was just as secure. In fact, she was partly using the date as an excuse to get away from local guys who were interested in her. As I write this, I am shocked to realize that she was the first girl I took on a solo date! Well, so much for my insightfulness. It turns out that God, my mom, Mary Louise and Martha were all playing me the fool of love.
I took her on a date to eat in Sierra Vista, a town about 45 minutes away from Douglas. At the time, Douglas did not have the assortment of good restaurants it has today and one had to drive out of town or across the border into Mexico to have a decently wide selection. That night, I had dinner and a movie planned. We would eat at Golden China on Fry Blvd. I remember having fun at dinner but in the back of my mind I kept on saying that we had no chemistry with each other. After dinner, we watched "Up Close and Personal," which did get a little up close and personal looking back at all the storyline reviews. I hated the tear-jerking ending, Martha of course loved it, but we both liked the sappy theme song, Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me." As soon as I got back home from dropping Martha off, my mom and Mary Louise were eager to hear about our date. With one emphatic "sorry guys, there's just no chemistry between us," I left them both looking at each other and went to bed.
Over the next year, I absorbed myself in my studies at Oral Roberts. I was progressing along very well at school but at the back of my mind I began to hear a calling back to my birth state of Arizona (I consider Massachusetts my second home state). There was a pull inside of me that just wouldn't let go. I had not lived in Arizona and called it home in almost nine years. Nine years earlier, we had left our small border town for an unknown future in a different country called "New England." The day we left Arizona will live in my memory forever because it was none other than Christmas Day 1987. It was no ordinary Christmas either. It was the first real White Christmas that Southern Arizona had experienced in many years. It was so white, in fact, that we and hundreds of other motorists got stranded in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We would arrive in Fort Devens, Massachusetts on New Year's Eve with even more snow on the ground. I was quite disappointed to see that the people in Mass no longer lived in thatched-roof houses and wore Pilgrim clothing and shoes as I had seen in my history books. What a culture shock!
Now, nine years later I felt the call to come back home, no longer the dreamy-eyed boy but now an almost grown-up college man. Uncertain about my calling home, I inquired of the Lord as to whether it was His will that I stop my studies mid-stream at Oral Roberts and transfer to the University of Arizona. Although I considered a prophecy uttered by my mother that "the Lord would give me opportunities, open up doors and bless me beyond my wildest dreams if i did," I was still hesitant to leave my comfort zone in Oklahoma. I inquired of the Lord and made my mother and Mary Louise witnesses. The Lord answered an emphatic "go home" through a fleece I had put before Him. As a result of hearing God's voice, I told my mother and Mary Louise that I was also becoming more certain of a calling to the Navy.
It was hard leaving all my friends at Oral Roberts. I would even miss the campus itself. It seemed as if faith and God's presence saturated the ground and air on those grounds. Living apart from my folks had really grown me up in the span of two years. Now, I was about to go home for Christmas one last time from Oklahoma, leaving a Christian school with a network of friends to attend a secular university with absolutely no friends awaiting me. What a culture shock!
That Christmas break was one of the darkest seasons of my life. I would not wish that merry Christmas on my worst enemy. That day will live in my memory forever, because it was none other than Christmas Day 1996, the day I broke up with my first girlfriend. Things would have been better if I had just listened to a dream that my mother had. The Fall Break before I left Tulsa, my mother counseled me on a road trip to check out the U of A. She told me "Son, the Lord gave me a dream last night. In this dream, your father and I were standing with you on the bank of a large lake. There were fishermen all around this lake and we could see fish swimming underneath the water's surface. In the middle of this lake, swam a beautiful fish that everyone was trying to catch. In a moment, we saw you jump in after the fish. You walked underwater until you came to it. You tried to touch it but it swam away from you. After doing this a couple times, you walked away from it realizing that you could not catch it. When you were just about to come up the bank the fish all of a sudden turned and came back to you and touched you. You turned around and spent some time with it but then you came to the surface. Your father and I were there to help you up." She asked me "what do you think it means mijo?" I replied to her sadly, "it means that my relationship is over." If I had just listened to the word from the Lord, I would have been spared some deep wounds, but I stretched the relationship out. Thank God for my parents. They were there to help me up.
With Oklahoma and heart break behind me, I began the new year at the University of Arizona. It was a magical time that first semester. Tall palm trees lined the university mall that ran the course of much of the campus. Red brick buildings glowed with the Arizona sunsets. I walked around lost in absolute ignorance to my surroundings and in awe at the beauty that was the home of the Wildcats. That semester, Spring 1997, our team would go on to win the NCAA Championship overcoming unthinkable odds by beating three number-one seeded teams. As a kid, I had remembered watching the Wildcats play and seeing that famous U of A logo on the court with the name "Arizona," a mountain, and a green cactus on it. I remembered thinking to myself that it was the coolest logo I had ever seen and that one day I would like to go to that school with the cool logo. Almost twenty years later, that was my school, that was my team, and there was that cool logo on the court. The school was completely abuzz and went chaotic when we won the championship. And I say "we" because there was a tangible pride and identity shared by the entire student body. Our team had beaten the odds. We took to the streets to celebrate. After it got a little crazy, most of us ran back to our dorms and apartments. I don't think we were prepared for the shock of victory.
Then came Spring Break 1997! It was the season that my eyes were opened to someone that had been there in front of me the whole time. My birthday always fell during Spring Break. The year before I had taken Martha out to eat around my birthday. History was repeating itself.
The Sunday before my birthday, the Pastor at First Assembly of God had passed out green prayer requests cards with instructions to put their petitions before the Lord. Martha held onto her card, while most of the people turned theirs in during the offering time. I was not attending First Assembly on Sundays as I would help my parents lead worship at their church in neighboring Bisbee (the former Templo Estrella). Wednesday night, the day of my birthday, I was able to attend Martha's church because school was out and my parent's did not have mid-week services. Several things transpired on that night that still leave me in shock.
Just before the start of service, one of my childhood friends who had attended my dad's old church in Douglas as a young girl walked up to Mary Louise, who was the youth pastor, and asked something that threw her back. "Mary Louise is there something going on between Danny and Martha?" she asked. Mary Louise responded matter of factly, "NOTHING, there is NOTHING going on between Danny and Martha, NOTHING. Why do you ask?" Serena responded "well, I just see something going on between them." Mary Louise shook her head and walked away a bit dumbfounded. Meanwhile, upstairs in the youth room, Martha was sitting with another one of my childhood friends who also attended my dad's old church as a young boy. She pulled out her green prayer request card and began to fill it out with her petition. She turned over to Josh and asked "hey Josh, what's today's date?" In his trademark quiet but smooth voice he responded back to her "it's March 19th." She wrote it atop the prayer request card and tucked it away in her Bible.
I walked in just before Mary Louise started the youth Bible study and extended my parent's invitation to everyone for some birthday cake and ice cream over at my house. After church, Martha told me that she wanted to go but that she did not have a ride. I told her "no problem" I could give her a ride. She accepted the offer and sent her Bible and her stuff home with her older brother and sister-in-law whom she lived with.
We had a great time at the party with so many laughs and stories, most of them at my expense. I am a bit of a dork at times and I love telling my personal "Griswald" stories. I was given a serious ribbing when a couple of my closest "sister-wingers" at Oral Roberts called during the party to sing me happy birthday. After the party and when most of the youth group had left, I asked Martha if she was ready to head home. She said "yes" and with that we were off to drive the 5 minutes or so to her brother's house.
Upon driving up to her brother's house I realized how early it still was in the evening and that Spring Break was half over. I wanted to hang out with her a bit more to talk as I had so many times before at church, over my house, with other youth and even on our ill-fated first date, which was more of a friend's night out. So I asked without much thought if we could do what every high school to college-aged person does in Douglas, go cruising. She said nonchalantly "ya whatever." We did the usual well worn circuit around Douglas. Almost everyone in Douglas could recite the cruise route. I had spent my formative cruising years in Massachusetts and Oklahoma, and even then I did not do much of it. But in Douglas, well, cruising might as well be a sport. I took Martha's directions and got to know the cruise route.
We talked about Cochise College where she went, her stealth excursions into Mexico with her niece (another Douglas rite of passage), life at Oral Roberts and in Mass, her hometown of San Pedro, my dreams of working in research and in the Navy, and just about everything that was going on in our lives at that moment. All of a sudden, it dawned on us that we had been driving and talking for hours! She said "oh my gosh, look what time it is." I can't remember the time, but I felt like her brother, who I had great respect for, was going to kill me. She reminded me that she was twenty-one and a college student. We must have been out near her school in the outskirts when we realized the time. I had asked her for a drive-by tour. It took longer to get to the school than to give me the tour. With my tour over, we made our way back into town.
The last conversation we had the last ten minutes or so before getting to her brother's revolved around relationships. She already knew about my sob story, so she told me the latest on hers. I already knew about her past relationships as we had all had our laughs amongst the group concerning our misadventures. She remembered that an old friend of hers from San Pedro was writing to her from jail. I was amused by the thought and wanted to know all the juicy details. I felt sorry for the guy, but I still chuckled when she told me that he was interested in starting a relationship with her. We pulled up in front of her brother's house and I parked the car. I knew her pretty well, but I just had to ask. With that I turned over, probably raised an eyebrow and half-laughed my question to my good friend, "Martha does this guy even have a chance?" She laughed and in her best dramatic Martha tone said "ohhh NO."
Then it happened. I can't quite remember how it happened, but all I can remember is that I felt like I was not even there in the car and that I was distant and looking at us having this conversation. I saw Martha's eyes get big and then I came to and she said "what did you say?" Then it dawned on me that out of my mouth had spewed the question "well, do I have a chance?" I was equally shocked by my own words. The last thing on earth I had been thinking about was a relationship with Martha. But then all of a sudden, in a blink, my eyes were opened and I was falling for her. I gulped and then mustered the courage and then asked her with my heart this time, "Martha, do I have a chance with you?" She looked away, laughed a nervous laugh and said "yes Danny, you have a chance." Then she shouted in her best dramatic tone startling me "oh my God, I can't believe it, that's so weird!" "What?" I asked my heart in my throat. "Hold on, I'll be right back!" she replied and she ran out the car and into the house. She came back a few minutes later with something in her hands. I asked her what it was. She told me as she unfolded a small green paper and repeated "oh my God, I can't believe it, that's so weird!" I was anxious now "what, what's so weird?" "Tonight, I told God that it was time and that I was ready for a serious relationship and told Him about the qualities that I wanted in a man" with the paper trembling in her hands. She read everything on her list and then told me that she had asked our friend Josh for the date. With that, she said "here, look at the date!" I could hardly believe my eyes as I looked on to a familiar word-number combination that I had known all my life, March 19th.
I didn't know what was happening to me. All of a sudden my heart was exploding and this warmth was coming over me. I looked at Martha and knew that she was the one. Like the story of Balaam and his donkey. Here in front of me sat my angel. It took God to open this donkey's mouth and eyes to see that she was right in front of me the whole time. I asked her for a kiss and she obliged giving me the first birthday kiss of my life.
Martha was and is the greatest birthday gift I have ever been given. God threw a surprise party and gave me the desire of my heart right when I needed her the most. The Lord used her to help me out of the rut that I was in. If only my heart could have waited for my birthday, there wouldn't have been such a rut.
Our relationship grew fast and come summer time, we thought it best to test it by fire. Martha would ask her family in California if she could spend the summer with them and look for a job. I would go to summer school and hopefully land a job myself. She got a job right away at Starbucks in Redondo Beach and I got a job at the Arizona Cancer Center, both absolute miracles. Martha's salary was supplemented by tips. Working in upscale Redondo Beach had its benefits. She out-earned me several times over as a Starbucks Barista.
Life without Martha was torture. I could not believe that we had agreed to this arrangement. Looking back it was God's will. Absence did make the heart grow fonder in my case, that by July I was a wreck. I just had to visit her. The Fourth of July was right around the corner. This was my chance. Plans were made and her sister and brother-in-law graciously opened up there house to me.
Interestingly, before I made the trip out to San Pedro, I learned that my Lab Manager's wife was raised in San Pedro and one of her siblings still lived over there. Him and his family also planned on being in San Pedro on the Fourth. Shortly after I arrived Martha bumped into my boss, whom she knew, while at a supermarket close to the apartments where she was raised. We came to find out that his wife was raised in the same apartment complex as Martha and that her birthday was none other than March 19th.
After I got back from San Pedro I sought the Lord about the relationship. The summer was now coming to an end and so was our test. I sought the Lord's face in my apartment living room for over an hour. As I was crying out to the Lord, I suddenly heard a soft knock at the door. There was another knock. I quickly cleaned my face from my tears and went to answer it. I opened the door and there stood a teenage girl somewhat surprised to see me. After a few awkward moments she asked me if her friend was home. I almost fainted. Her friend's name was my former girlfriend's name!!! I somehow managed to the say the words, "I am sorry but she doesn't liver here anymore." With that the girl turned around and left somewhat confused. If only she knew. On a side note, I also discovered that I shared walls with a Navy recruiter, who enlisted in the Navy interestingly enough on March 19th. But that's a part of a whole other miraculous story.
I was shaken by the encounter and took some time getting back into prayer. The Spirit of the Lord was gracious and He soon fell upon me in power. I began to praise the Lord in the spirit. As I was doing so, I was also inquiring of the Lord with my mind about the relationship. All of a sudden the Lord began to show me that there was deep purposes, blessings, and His favor upon the relationship beyond my understanding and wisdom. With moans and groans that words cannot express, the Spirit interceded for me in my inquiry (Romans 8:26). The Lord moved in my heart to ask for two signs (Isaiah 7:11). I asked Him for confirmation in Scripture and for a dream. In this dream, I asked the Lord to have me catch a fish and hold it in my hand. The symbolism was to be obvious to me that this relationship was to have and to hold, and not to surrender back to the water.
Within moments of me asking for the two signs. I began to sing in the Spirit. The tune became recognizable and I began to sing it in English. It was a Christmas duet sung by Michael W. Smith, who wrote the music, and Amy Grant, who wrote the words. The song begins, "no eye had seen. No ear had heard. 'Til hosts on high, proclaimed the birth." The first verse kept ringing in my ears and spirit. Then it dawned on me that it might be a Scripture verse. I ran to grab my concordance and there it was! One reference was found in Isaiah 64:4 and the other in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2:7-16, which quotes the one in Isaiah. Paul's words in Corinthians hit me between the eyes and spoke to exactly what had transpired in my living room over the last two hours:
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
And with that, I was convinced. Immediately in my heart I began the plans to marry Martha. I did wait a couple nights for the dream, but Scripture, the sword of the Spirit, had cut me to the heart and was more than enough confirmation. I soon forgot all about the dream. Within four months, I had saved up enough money to buy the solitaire engagement ring that caught my eye. I wasn't quite sure when to pop the question, but Christmas Eve kept coming to mind. I tried brushing away the idea because it seemed to in parallel with my break up the year before on Christmas Day. But there was no denying the urge, it just had to be Christmas Eve.
Martha had no idea about my plans. I arranged for dinner reservations that night at the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee with my surprise tucked hidden in the car. Dinner was wonderful that night. As we headed for home, a sudden chill filled the air. I had asked my parents ahead of time if my soon-to-be fiance could spend the night at the house in Mary Louise's room. They agreed knowing my plans. When we arrived in Douglas, we parked in front of my parent's house, my childhood home, which we moved into on my birthday - March 19th, 1978. Soon, the largest snow flakes I have ever seen started to fall. It was going to be a child's wonderland and dream. It would be the first White Christmas in ten years. Ten years ago to the day we left this same home for an unknown future in Massachusetts. I could not get over the coincidence.
I made small talk with Martha until I gained the courage. I then asked her to look under her seat. She pulled out the ring and just stared at it. I unwrapped a song I had written the night before. It was inspired by Martha's love for Precious Moments Dolls and for cats, to which I am allergic to, but not to the musical by the same I had taken her to as a date. I sang Precious Moments to the tune of Memories haltingly and through tears and then asked her to marry me. We kissed under the starlight in front of my home surrounded by falling snow flakes, the biggest and softest I have ever seen.
We made our way into my parent's home where I introduced them to their future daughter-in-law. That night in bed, I thanked the Lord for the greatest birthday gift I had ever been given, Martha. Somehow, I drifted off into sleep.
Shortly before waking up, I found myself in Massachusetts in my old high school cafeteria. There, I was speaking to two girls. For some strange reason we were getting ready for rafting down a river. In a blur, we were on the river making our way in the gentle rapids. When we reached our destination on shore, the three of us took out fishing poles. The two girls had bait casters, while I had an old-fashioned bamboo pole whose line I had to throw by hand. The girls were complaining at how long it was taking for the them to catch anything. I told them "you need to be more patient." Just then, a felt a tug on my line. I pulled the line in and took my catch by the hand. I turned around and saw a female Fish and Wildlife Warden approach the three of us. She looked at the fish in my hand and said "you've got yourself a pretty nice catch there." With that I woke up. The dream was so real that I thought I was still in Massachusetts. Then it hit me. I had forgotten all about the dream of catching a fish and holding it in my hand!
My dream and how Martha and I met was the subject at the breakfast table that Christmas morning and at several tables since then. The Lord was faithful to His word in this and in so many miraculous ways. Thank you Lord for the greatest birthday and Christmas gift I could ever receive. Happy Birthday to my Woman of Destiny!
Precious MomentsStarlight shines alone on a Silent Night.
Do you share in our secret
As we're falling in love?
In your night-light, two shadows eclipse into one,
For a moment, shine above.
Baby, it's too early to leave me.
Can't you hear our fate calling?
And the night is timeless,
Precious moments that hurried-time can seem to forget.
Let the moment live for us.
Take me by the hand and we'll marry.
There's no moment as precious
When a man finds his wife.
If you take me, we'll understand the meaning of love,
Make a moment last for life.
Love me: I must have you this evening.
I can't cool these emotions;
They burn bright as the sun.
If you love me, I'll understand what love really is.
You're the moment; you're the one.
Copyright ©1997 Daniel Romero Morales Jr.
Postscript: About two years ago, it finally dawned on me that the Lord had given me a Christmas song as confirmation. Apparently, I was so excited about the fact that I found a Scriptural sign that I overlooked the fact that the song pointed prophetically to Christmas when I was to propose to her. God exists -
Find Him today!
