How I Met My Wife

Sometimes the circumstances of life are like a fictitious tornado that blows through a home picking everything up, rearranging it all, then carefully putting things back where the tornado sees fit. My life seemed that way after my mom and my step-father were divorced. Everything seemed to be picked up in the strong winds and was flung around my world. But eventually, piece by piece, things began to be put into place as Providence would have it. It was as though God was saying, “Now, that looks much better. Just the way I like it.” I never would have designed it that way…but who am I to argue with the creator of the universe. He has a plan and sees no need to ask my opinion.

I went to Southern Bible College in the fall of 1976 after graduation from Wichita Falls High School. It took me several extra years to get through college as I did not always pass all my classes and I took a semester or year off every now and then for ministry opportunities that arose. As a result I was 24 years old in the late summer of 1982 working on my junior year when one of those afore mentioned tornados blew into my life.

Ary Lisa Winkler was a petite, “cute as a button” freshman coming to SBC from Tahlequah, Oklahoma. At 17 years of age she was out of her element in the big city of Houston. She had never been away from home and was excited but a little overwhelmed by the change high school graduation had thrust upon her.

Lisa’s high school principal had attended SBC and had encouraged her to attend there also. The night before she left for college her church congregation and small Christian school families held a going away party for her. Her principal teased with her, “Lisa, you will marry the first guy you meet at college.” She protested that she was going to be serious about college and wanted to finish all four years. Marriage was in not in her immediate future.

This incoming Freshman flew from the nearest airport to Houston. The flight from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Houston Intercontinental Airport had a short layover in Dallas. Lisa asked the flight attendant if she was to get off the plane. The helpful attendant asked her where she was going. When Lisa responded Houston she was instructed to stay on the plane as that plane would depart for Houston shortly. Lisa returned to her seat and watched the baggage handlers unloading luggage…some of it was hers. But she obediently followed the flight attendants instructions and stayed on the plane. Had the attendant looked at Lisa’s ticket she would have seen that Lisa was to board a different plane bound for Houston.

The plane Lisa was on did go to Houston but not to Houston Intercontinental. Instead her plane was intersecting destiny and flew her to Houston Hobby Airport…across town from where her greeting party waited patiently for her to arrive. When she got to Hobby Airport there was no one to pick her up. She had no money, no one to call, and no clue what to do. She eventually contacted someone from back home and they arranged for some friends to pick Lisa up and take her to the college.

Frustrated and confused, Lisa was explaining to Mimi, the Women’s Dorm Mother at Southern Bible College, that evidently her luggage had gone to a different airport than she had. She needed someone to take her to Houston Intercontinental to claim them. At that very moment, I came walking down the stairs. Mimi called me over and demanded, “Allen, take this little girl to the airport to pick up her luggage.” I started to protest but Mimi gave me the look that let me know she meant business. I agreed and invited the new Freshman to follow me.

There is more to the story than I will tell here…her huge Samsonite bags, my beat up Ford LTD, attending church together, becoming friends, doing laundry together, and late night study sessions. But we eventually became interested in each other and started dating. By “dating” I mean we took youth at the small church where I was youth director to various church functions. Before Thanksgiving of that year I asked Lisa to marry me. She agreed, as did her parents who we visited in Oklahoma to ask permission. On June 18, 1983 we were married. Lisa had fulfilled the fateful words of her school principal…she had actually married the first guy she met at college.

Later I found out when Lisa was nine years old she prayed every day for the man she would someday marry. I was 16 at the time. On November 29 of that same year (1974) I gave my life to Christ. I earnestly believe it was the prayers of that nine year old girl that softened my heart and made me willing to respond to my dad’s invitation to join him at church that pivotal, autumn night.