We Were Almost Two More: But God
Two weeks after graduating high school in 1981, Gage was excited to become Mrs. David McDaniel. She had met David three and a half years earlier at the age of fourteen and a half on a Wednesday night at church. He was seventeen. After asking the boy she had come with to move so David could sit beside her, he introduced himself. Two weeks later she came back, and he got her number. With her father’s permission, they began talking and double dating. On June 12, 1981, they were married.
Their honeymoon in Panama City Beach, Florida, and the events of the next two days would later become what they see as a foreshadowing of their marriage.
On their first full day as a married couple, they decided to swim out to the second sandbar to look for sand dollars. They had no idea of the danger they were walking into. Unaware of the warning flags and the strength of the undercurrent, they headed out with a blow-up raft. David wore fins a snorkel and a mask.
They made it to the sandbar only to realize it had shifted. They couldn’t find the bottom. Confused, they decided to head back toward shore. Gage held onto the raft while David swam and pulled repeatedly. He quickly realized they were caught in an undertow. He removed his fins and let them go. He told Gage to release her goggles and snorkel so she could hold on better. When she did, she watched them fall a short distance before being swept rapidly away beneath her feet.
David could touch the sand briefly, but every time he did, it would disappear beneath him. Then the waves began crashing one after another, knocking Gage into the water. Fear set in. David tried pushing her forward, but she kept being pulled back out. Eventually, she went under.
She believed she was going to die.
“I said God, is this it? You let me just get married and this is the end!?”
Suddenly, from beneath the water, she felt a strong hand pushing her upward to the surface, it was David. She took a deep breath and began swimming again, only to be pulled under once more. They were in a true fight for their lives.
David looked up and saw a girl drifting toward them on a float. She was passed out drunk. When they grabbed the float, she woke up angry, cursing and demanding they let go, completely unaware she was being carried out to sea. After arguing, they convinced her of the danger and told her to start kicking. All three of them fought with everything they had.
They were swept far down the shoreline before finally getting close enough to shore where ten men had formed a human chain and pulled them to safety.
When they returned to their room, exhaustion overwhelmed them. They slept—a lot. When Gage called her mother to say they were safe and mentioned the previous day’s events, she realized they had lost twenty-four hours. It was June 14. They had slept an entire day.
Through laughter, David said, “ When you lose 24hrs of your honeymoon- you never catch up!”
Gage replied, “he’s been trying to ever since.”
Then, becoming serious and emotional, she reflected:
“17 people drowned that weekend in Panama City Beach - we were almost 2 more - But God - and over and over and over it’s been “But God!””
That would not be their only near-death experience.
Several years later, while Gage was seven months pregnant with their fourth and final daughter, David went fishing with a friend who brought along his teenage son. They were fishing near a dam when suddenly they were pulled against it. No matter how hard they tried, they could not get away. Every attempt left them right back against the wall.
On one final attempt to crank the boat and power through, the boat flipped, and they were instantly trapped underneath. David held onto the steering wheel as long as he could. When he could no longer hold on, he was thrown against the dam wall with water rushing over him.
“I remember the weight of the water on me every time I’d try to get free,” David said.
He began thinking about his family.
“ I remember thinking, I wish I was home hugging them girls - then I get a real lonely feeling. Then I heard what I know was the Holy Spirit telling me to get out of that life jacket. I couldn’t breathe anymore and I thought that if they drag this river they aren’t gonna drag at the dam, they are gonna drag down the river. So I put two thumbs under the bottom of the jacket and pulled it off like a tee shirt. When I did, I left into the dark water then popped up like a cork and I’m going down this river now.”
After regaining his bearings, he saw that his friend and the boy were safe. His boat was not. It was floating upside down about a quarter mile downriver with all its contents scattered. He managed to retrieve it, roll it over, and load it up.
He arrived home at 9 a.m. as Gage was cooking breakfast. She burst into tears instinctively, knowing something was wrong. David assured her he was fine—except for the boat. Laughing later, he said it “looked like a busted can of biscuits!” It became one more story in a growing list that began with “But God.”
Struggles were not limited to near-death experiences. Finances affected them deeply in the early years. Like many young couples, they were not wealthy. But they were rich in faith.
One Sunday morning, they sat in church with $140 to their name and a cancellation notice from the power company for a $117 overdue bill. David was out of work as a contractor, and they had no idea when the next paycheck would come.
A missionary had spoken that morning. As they stood to pray before the offering was collected, David held Gage’s hand and remembered:
“While I was praying I know God told me to give that money for the power bill but I said, no God, not without you talking to Gage first- see she struggled giving and paying tithe sometimes. But it was breaking my heart. Before the offering plate come she squeezed my hand and told me to do what I wanted to do.”
They gave the $117, fully aware it meant they would likely lose power.
On what David described as “a cold and quiet ride home,” he asked Gage how much remained.
About $23.
With tears in his eyes, he said, “ I told her, Gage, God is gonna prove Himself faithful - He said to try Him and we’ve tried Him!”
Gage responded, “ I said do what you want to do but I didn’t know you were going to want to do that!”
They stopped and bought Mrs. Winner’s fried chicken and went home uncertain about what the coming weeks or months would look like. After eating what felt like “the last supper,” David checked their answering machine.
There were three messages.
- “David, we had a family member do some work on our house and they messed it all up, would you be able to come fix it for us? Give us a call.”
- “Hey David, we are needing a deck built on our house and thought of you. Let us know if you’re available.”
- “David this is Bud, we’re going out of town this week, but we need our outside painted and we left a $2000 check in your mailbox, come start when you can.”
“We ate good chicken after that!” David joked, tears still in his eyes. “We’ve been faithful in our givin’ and He’s been faithful back to us.”
In the years that followed, David went on mission trips annually, doing construction work around the world. He gained skills and confidence that led to job advancement. In 1998, he was offered a management position at a refractory company. It was a tremendous opportunity, but there was a problem: he couldn’t read.
He was gifted in math and could handle the work, but he couldn’t read or write contracts. After admitting this to his superiors, they offered to hire someone to handle the paperwork. George became assistant manager—and David’s close friend.
George taught him to read.
“I write out every one of our contracts now. I can read everything.”
But the pressure of management began to spill into their home life.
“The control I learned I had to have at work, I thought I had to have at home.”
Arguments escalated. Control increased. Eventually, it turned physical. One night after an argument, Gage took their four daughters to her mother’s house. Later, she met David to talk. They drove in the rain, arguing. It became physical again. David pushed her out of the car and left her at an AutoZone.
Afraid, she went inside, had employees call the police, and locked herself in the bathroom.
David was arrested.
Gage believed the marriage was over. She began seeking an order of protection. Before court, her pastor asked her to promise one thing: be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit rather than the attorneys.
In court, after hearing their story, the judge said, “somethings not right” and ordered thirty days of counseling instead of immediately granting the protection order.
In counseling, unhealed wounds were exposed, brought to light and lost their power. They began addressing deeper issues in both of them. Through hard and painful work, their marriage was restored and became stronger for many years.
But slowly, over time, complacency crept in.
They forgot the small things—listening, being present, prioritizing each other. David worked away from home for weeks at a time. Gage poured herself into ministry, filling their home with youth from church. She became “Mama Gage” to many.
David wanted peace at home. He wanted time with his wife and daughters.
“He didn’t like it, and I didn’t like that he didn’t like it.”
Resentment built quietly on both sides.
While traveling for work, David met a woman. What began innocently turned into a year-long affair.
“ That’s how quick the enemy brought me down. People say it don’t happen like that, it happened just like that.”
Gage discovered the truth when David thought he had hung up the phone, but hadn’t. The other woman was in the truck with him.
She confronted him. He quickly admitted everything.
She contacted a divorce attorney. The attorney surprised her.
“I know you’re hurt, I know you’re disgusted and you want out. But you sound like good people and there are things worse than infidelity. Stay separated but go find a counselor and if you can’t work it out, come back.”
Soon after Gage met with her Pastor. He asked her one question that changed everything for Gage. He assured her she had every right to divorce but asked, “ is there any equity? With all the good and the bad, weigh it out and think about it. Y’all have a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows, you’ve rode out a lot of things. But a marriage is like building a house and you’ve built a lot in this relationship, look at all you’ve built and ask yourself if there is any equity there.”
Feeling invalidated again as a betrayed woman she was angry all over again. In the coming days as the emotion subsided she began to reflect on the reality of what was said to her and considered that maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that the advice from the attorney and her pastor were essentially the same. So she went back to counseling. So did David.
“In no time, we pulled ourselves back together, but I realized, yes, he’s the one that committed the sin. But I created the environment that he was totally blocked out from. I had such big boundaries and had shut him out from his children, from his home, from his wife”
Their daughters struggled to forgive, but slowly over time healing came.
More hardship followed. As the years have passed life has continued to bring wave after wave. After building a very successful business, it was discovered while buying a house that an employee had wiped out the business account. They were left practically homeless, in debt to the IRS and broke. They had to start completely over.
But God.
Their daughter, appropriately named Hope battled addiction for years. They lived the life no parent should have to live, playing out her funeral in their minds so when it actually happened, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. They came to the place of having to completely let her go, something no parent who loves their child can comprehend.
But God.
Hope is now sober and a mother to a beautiful baby girl named Israel.
Looking back, Gage reflected on Paul’s suffering and said:
“the point of this is, he talked about all the things that he's been through. But he rejoices in the fact that in all of those things, where he could have been, how his life could have been ended. God was there, and God brought him through, and it was for God's glory. That, I think, is the story, of our marriage, of our family. I hope that that will be and is our legacy. That because of the blood of Jesus Christ, and forgiveness and love, And his saving hand. We've been through all these things. And we are right where God wanted us to be. With God we withstood it, everything.”
Today, David and Gage pass that legacy on to their four adult daughters and six grandchildren.
Wave after wave. Hit after hit.
But God.
