by Gregory Davis
June 24, 2018
“When I was in grade school, back in central Illinois, one day a new girl moved to town. I was at that age when little boys find little girls interesting. This new girl was very different. She had dark hair and dark eyes, was Asian, and very “exotic-looking,” from a 9-year-old boy’s point of view. Her name was Susan, and I used dream that she could be “my special girl”.
In a few months Susan moved away. And that…was that. Or so I thought.
I grew up in my small mid-western village as a member of the “baby boomer crowd” and in high school and college became disillusioned with life as I saw it all around me. I began to question many things and ask many questions about life. My feet and my mind began wandering.
In 1974, I found myself in Rochester, New York, where I met this “crazy” Messianic movement called the Unification Church, filled with like-minded souls.I found the teaching, the Divine Principle, to be very much in line with what I felt in my heart. The part where I learned that God, our Heavenly Parent, especially wants us, his children, to be married and experience His heart of love, was very appealing to me. However, I had not given much thought to marriage before I met Reverend Moon’s group, and I did not have much hope because I didn’t think I could ever find someone. I didn’t even know how to look for someone.
Reverend Moon, True Father, came to my rescue when, May of 1979, an announcement went out that those of a certain physical age and spiritual maturity were invited to come to New York City immediately, to be matched by True Parents. Soon I found myself on a plane with dozens of other brothers and sisters headed for New York to make history and begin the wildest ride of our lives. We were all giddy and filled with emotion – What would this be like? What would happen? How could we “prepare”?
The process of the matching went like this: True Father walked through the crowd packed in the Grand Ballroom at the New Yorker Hotel. He would then suddenly stop, as if receiving a signal from somewhere. Next, he would request a certain group or individual stand up and face another group or individual (boys and girls, respectively), after which he would move very quickly, joining the potential “eternal partners” together. Truly a mysterious process.
It was a tremendous challenge of faith even for the most devout.
Now, let me be clear here: We were told that these couples were “suggested” matches, and that the couples had “veto” power. That is, they could agree and accept, or disagree and reject their matches. Some did indeed reject their match. But I had a feeling that most of us were ready to let God, by way of Rev. Moon, select our future spouse. I, for one, was relieved. How could I, I reasoned, select one of my “sisters” over another after having worked together for many years with many of those now in that same room? A daunting task. “Thank you, God, that I don’t have to choose,” I prayed. “I only need to say yes or no.”
I was very relaxed, even somewhat aloof, trusting that God would ‘somehow’ act in my best interest. So I waited my turn. And I waited and waited. Nothing was happening. I was not being matched. Was I missing something? Several sessions went by, and the room emptied out and filled up again, as Rev. Moon would take a break and then start again. Each time the selection of candidates would get sparser. Hmmm…
As the third session of the day was about to begin, a friend of mine and a respected leader in the movement at that time, said very strongly, “Greg, you’ve got to be more aggressive. This is your future!”. It was a message from heaven and something that changed my destiny. When I took his advice to heart and began to be more serious in my attitude, I realized I wanted the best God could offer. I realized my attitude made the difference. It always does.
All of the sudden, as if in a dream, I was asked to stand up with a group of brothers and face a group of Japanese sisters. This was it. All my faith lessons, prayers, dreams and wishes came flooding to my heart.
True Father singled out a shy, demure Japanese sister with short black hair and deep black eyes – in an instant, less time than it takes an electric spark to fly. I felt a charge like a lightning bolt hit me squarely in the center of my chest. The room froze – there was no movement for less time than it takes to breathe a breath – and then I knew that she was the one. The next thing I realized was that Father was pointing at me. “You, you are the one”, he said.
However, apparently, there was some confusion as another brother was about step forward and claim what he must have thought was his prize. No,(I thought-not so fast) she was for me! Even though I was standing at the back of the group, Heaven made it clear: “You, you are the one.” I stepped forward, in a daze, not fully realizing what just happened. My future spouse then led the way out of the room. She said to me, as we walked past Father, “I know you”.
We ended up in the room where the potential couples went to discuss their match and then decide their future. Yea or nay… But I was speechless. I was so shocked by all that had transpired that I could not speak. Really! All I could do was gaze deep into her eyes and hold back my tears. But in my heart I knew I did not need to speak. There was no question. We would do this! My lovely, dark-haired, black-eyed Asian beauty, Sumiko, who is now my wife, continued to tell me that she knew me. I searched my memory to see if I could place her or recall some serendipitous time when, briefly, our paths might have crossed. Apparently, we had worked together on MFT in the same area a few years ago. [During the early days of the Unification Church in America, members raised funds for church activities in so-called Mobile Fundraising Teams, traveling in vans from state to state.] But I had not recognized her then; she had looked different. We decided we would agree to the match, returned and bowed to True Parents.
I later found out that Sumiko’s nickname was “Susan”… So finally, after all those years, I did get my “special girl” with the dark hair, the dark eyes, and the pure heart. Coincidence? I think not. I believe that God knows our deepest mind and wants to give us the “desires of our hearts”. We are still “agreeing” to the match more than 30 years later. We have celebrated our 30-year anniversary on July 1, 2012, with many of the other couples and our two grown daughters. We are sincerely grateful to our True Parents for giving us the greatest gift of the Blessing and eternal true love. And now recently both daughters gave birth to beautiful granddaughters, born within a week of each other!
(Point of clarification: when I first shared this story with a few people they had somehow thought that I was actually matched to “my childhood sweetheart”. That was NOT the case. The girl I was matched to merely “resembled” that image that I held in my mind and heart all those years ago! God truly heard my prayer all those years ago—and gave me the desires of my heart!)