Testimonies - I Am Second - Michael W. Smith

While playing keyboards for the group Higher Ground, I signed my first songwriting contract with Paragon/Benson Publishing Company. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I was knocking down $200 a week to do something that I loved. Writing songs for a living meant that I didn’t have to wait tables anymore, or work at Coca-Cola, or plant shrubs with a landscaping company.

I thought my life had peaked and God didn’t have to do anything else for me. I wasn’t looking for a record deal, a higher salary, or even a girlfriend – and especially not a wife. Writing music, I was as content as I’d ever been, and I labored at it sixteen hours a day. Then one afternoon while I was working in my office, Deborah Kay Davis walked by.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. When she passed by, it was all over for me. I was blown away. Totally head over heels in love. I frantically picked up the phone and called my mother in West Virginia.

"Mom, I can’t believe it. You’re not going to believe this, Mom. I just saw the girl I’m going to marry.

"What’s her name?"

"I don’t know, Mom. I haven’t met her yet. But I gotta go. I’ll find out and call you back."

My poor mother! She must have thought I’d lost my mind. But I’d never been so clearheaded in my life.

I left my office and went searching for this girl in the warehouse. Sherlock Holmes couldn’t have done a better job of tracking her down, and eventually I found myself standing outside the ladies’ restroom, waiting for her to emerge. She walked out. I introduced myself. We were engaged three and a half weeks later – and married four months after that!

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