Around 1983, she met some Christians who were part of a ministry that helped people who struggled with their sexual identity. They were persistent with Martínez, telling her the Lord revealed to them that they were sent to help her.
For the next three years, she endured an intense healing process. God eventually mended relationships. Even the woman she spent seven years with was delivered as well. “God’s love accepted me as I am. He accepted me with all of my problems,” Martínez says.
Because of her experience, Martínez understands that some people dealing with homosexuality and lesbianism feel as if God has rejected them. But He hasn’t, she says. “God rejects the sin and the behavior, but God loves the sinner,” says Martínez, who worked the next 12 years for Librería Morada de Paz, the ministry that helped save her life. In English, it means “abode” or “habitation of peace.”
In 1992, after her mother died, Martínez left her home in Puerto Rico. She still worked for Librería Morada de Paz as an evangelist in Miami and then Connecticut. In 1995, she left the ministry to birth In the Wings of Faith Ministries, aiming to make leaders and disciples, then moved to central Florida in 1998.
“I love teaching. That’s my passion,” says Martínez, who’s authored four books in Spanish, including ¡Señor, Sacame de Aquí! (Lord, Get Me Out of Here!), volumes 1 and 2; and just this year, Atrévete a Pensar Como Él (I Dare You to Think Like Him). José says his sister “has a gift of working with people. People feel comforted when she talks to them.”
From 1998 to 2008 Rosita also worked as an associate pastor, before finally pastoring a church through her ministry last year. Because of her powerful testimony, Martínez has been asked over the years to speak both in the U.S. and internationally.
Martínez’s assistant and co-pastor of their church, Maria Eugenia Delgado, says her friend of more than 20 years is a brave woman of God. “She’s a teacher of the Word … and she’s passionate about helping people. The same way she feels the love of God for her—that’s the way she shows her love.”
Whenever Martínez speaks, writes, preaches, teaches and counsels, her message is clear: God wants a relationship with His children, and His greatest gift was His own Son, Jesus. She believes that no matter what sins a person may be wrestling with, God can help the person overcome them, if he or she is willing to.
She understands what it’s like to struggle, so she can identify with others. “When I see them, I see them with compassion—with love.”
Sarah Stegall is a freelance journalist, skilled Twitter user and tennis fanatic who believes in God’s perfect timing. She recently took what many call a “leap of faith” and left her small Florida hometown to teach schoolchildren in Israel.
Want more on God’s transforming love? Read a miraculous testimony of another woman freed from lesbianism at free.charismamag.com
