True Love Waits: Surfer Couple Lives Out God's Promises
Cheri Martin waited a long time to find "true love." So long in fact, that with her 50th birthday in sight, she began to doubt it would ever happen.
Cheri grew up playing on the white, sandy beaches near Pensacola, Florida. The daughter of a pastor, she had faith that one day her prince would come.
"In my 20s, I watched as friend after friend got married," Cheri recalled. "My heart would just sink because I really didn't date that much. I was a little bit of a late bloomer but still time's passing and you begin to feel like God is passing you by."
But Cheri believed that God had promised her when she was just a teenager that she would be married. So she continued to hope and to date but time after time the relationships would fizzle.
'Don't Let Me Be Desperate'
"I would just pray, 'God, please don't let me be desperate, please don't let me be desperate,' so I just kept waiting and I kept seeking God," she recalled.
"There's a verse in Isaiah that talks about this. 'No more will you be termed forsaken but your land will be married ( )' and I would cling to verses like that," Cheri remembered.
By now, Cheri was in her late 40s with no prospects in sight when some friends invited her to a wedding and to meet a surfer named Ben.
"And right in the center of the church lobby, all by himself, is this gorgeous guy in a tuxedo, just standing there! And I'm just thinking, 'Surely this is the guy my friend told me about,'" she recalled. "So, I'm like, 'Hello,' and I ran in and found my friend and said, 'Please tell me that's him!' She said, 'It is.'"
The next day Ben and Cheri saw each other again at church.
"And as soon as church was over this gorgeous guy walks up to me and says, 'Hi, my name is Ben Martin," Cheri recalled. "So obviously I had caught his eye as well."
CBN's Wendy Griffith asked Ben, "Was it love at first sight?"
"No, but I was definitely attracted to Cheri," Ben recalled. "But I was still kinda torn where I was."
'It Works'
What Cheri didn't know was Ben had been through a painful divorce and was still hurting. What Ben, a surfer and lover of the ocean, didn't know was that Cheri was afraid of the water.
"One night I took her paddle boarding out here on the intercoastal in the middle of the night to watch the fireworks and I had no idea she had a phobia of the water," he recalled.
But Cheri said that difference hasn't mattered.
"I like to tan, he likes to surf, it works," Cheri said with a smile.
But it wasn't all smooth sailing for Ben and Cheri. Ben was still wrestling with his divorce and the two broke up for several months in the summer of 2012.
"I come from a divorced family and didn't want that to be a part of my life. So I had to let go of there being hope for restoration of the first marriage," Ben said. "It had been several years but it had to be finalized in my heart."
"And I said look, it has to be me and no one else," Cheri said. "I can't play second fiddle, I have to know I have your whole heart. And he said, 'You're the one. You're the one I want to be with.'"
"So for someone to finally say, 'I am choosing you,' it was just like...(deep breath)," she said.
Then, in the summer of 2012, after nearly two years of dating (on and off) Cheri was preparing to celebrate her 50th birthday.
"We had not looked at rings, we had not talked about marriage - Nothing!" she recalled. "But, I just kept thinking, a walk on the beach at sunset - we'd never done that as a couple."
"We come through the dunes onto the beach; there's a wedding taking place on this side of the beach and there's a wedding taking place of that side of the beach and he asked me if I'd ever thought about a wedding on the beach," Cheri remembered.
"Of course, when you grow up on the beach, everybody thinks of that," she chuckled.
Sand Dune Surprise
It was there in the sand dunes on Cheri's 50th birthday, that Ben, a man nine years younger, professed his love.
"I just shared my heart that I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and asked her if she would like to do the same," Ben remembered. "And she said yes as I'm trying to shuffle the ring out of my pocket."
Cheri says the age difference didn't really seem to matter.
"The Lord just eased all that away," Cheri recalled. "It becomes a non-issue after a while and people always say there doesn't look like there's that much of an age difference."
Cheri and Ben were engaged on June 2, 2012 and set the wedding date for five months later.
November 3, 2012 finally arrived.
"It was a beautiful, gorgeous day and right away, it's just like, thank you God!" Cheri remembered.
"So we rented a house on the beach and had our families come out and the wedding took place right out front on the sand," Ben said.
Cheri says her story is proof that when God gives you a promise, He is faithful to fulfill it even if it takes a while.
"Ask Him to give you a promise - whatever that is and then hold on to that promise because He will be faithful," Cheri said.
"I wanted someone true and that's what God gave me - the real deal," Ben said. "I know my heart is safe with her and age is just a number. She is gorgeous and God is good! He who finds a wife finds a good thing!"
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