He writes the BEST stories

The Trust Project ♦ June 30, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

Today is my eighth wedding anniversary.  Each year as I recall and reflect how God brought me and my husband together, I am continually amazed at how God worked (and continues to work) in our lives to show us that He can never be outdone in generosity. Our story is one I love to tell, and also one I feel can inspire others to trust God completely, even with the most vulnerable parts of ourselves that we try and hold onto, in an effort to protect our fragile hearts.

Just before I met Joseph, I had reached a pretty low point in my life.  I was twenty-five years old, I had been out of college for three years, completed my masters degree, and just moved from a small rural town (with literally no relationship prospects) to a larger city in northern IL in the hopes of giving myself more opportunities to meet people. I had also been offered a job which would take me out of the public school realm and into the private sector, which seems like a positive transition for me at the time.

While living on my own for three years after college, I had lots of time to pray and discern about where my life was going.  I had remained open to the plans that God had for me, whether that meant remaining single, entering religious life, or getting married, but I continually felt drawn towards marriage (as I had for some time). The confusing thing however, was that all of my relationships up to that point had not worked out (and there were no current prospects).  All of this led me to question whether or not I was traveling down the right path…I remember saying to God “Lord, if you want me to enter religious life, you’re going to have to give me a fire and a passion for that!” Similarly, I prayed to find peace in my singleness, if that is what He truly desired for my life. But even in the midst of those prayers, it was hard to dismiss the dream of having a husband and a family of my own someday.

When I moved in the fall of 2010, I was expecting all of my relationship problems to be solved.  “This was the answer, right?”, I told God.  All I needed to do was shake the dust of this tiny, rural town, move to a larger, more thriving area, I would meet someone, and suddenly all of my dreams would come true.  So you can imagine my surprise when months after my move, in addition to joining a Catholic young adult group, I was still single with no prospects.  I began to question God-I didn’t understand why nothing ever seemed to work out for me.  In addition to having no relationship prospects, I had taken over the position of a very well-loved teacher who was let go under what many in the community felt like unfair circumstances, so needless to say, my life felt like anything but easy at the time.  To make matters worse, I had been involved in two minor car accidents since moving, and was hit by a truck as a pedestrian a few weeks later (surprisingly, I walked away without any major injuries…which I only attribute to the grace of God).

Luckily for me, the church I had joined at the time had a perpetual adoration chapel five-minutes away from my apartment. I found myself going there everyday, begging God to show me the way. I remember saying to the Lord, “If you want me to be single the rest of my life, I trust you with that. I trust that you will make me happy in that if that’s what you truly desire for me”. All the while, I continued to pray for a good and holy man to be brought into my life if I was supposed to get married.

Over the course of this journey, the prospect of online dating had been mentioned to me more than once, but I quickly dismissed it, saying it wasn’t for me and that I would much rather meet someone the “natural” way.  Even so, I knew my older sister had successfully married a man she had met online, and that it wasn’t totally bad…it just wasn’t for me.  I will never forget my surprise when, about the second Sunday in October 2010, I came back to my apartment after mass, and distinctly heard ” You need to join Catholic match, and you need to do it today.”  The Holy Spirit had never spoken that directly to me before, so I figured I had better listen to such a clear message! With hopeful anticipation, I created my online profile, and began searching through other profiles, hoping to find my future in one of them.

But two weeks later, I was disappointed again.  Several messages were sent with no replies, there was a lot of interest from men whom I had no interest in, and no one in my area (or even in my state) that would either give me the time of day or seemed interesting enough to get to know.  At that time, I decided to change my search requirements, and simply added “attends daily mass”.  My husband’s profile was one of the first ones that came up.  Interested, I began reading, and felt immediately drawn to his words and what his interests were.  I got excited thinking, “this guy and I have so much in common!”, and then reality set in…Sacramento, California.  There was no way (or so I thought), but I did want to tell him that I loved his artwork, so I sent him a friendly message anyway (not really expecting it to go anywhere, considering the distance between us).

To my surprise, he responded, and after his response I was even more intrigued and interested.  I began to get excited, thinking perhaps this could go somewhere, but at the end of his message he told me that even with our shared interests and faith background, he was not looking for a long distance relationship.  I was so perplexed by what seemed like an interested reply, only to feel like doors were closing again.  It wasn’t until my brother-in-law had the genius idea of simply”writing him back”, that things really began.  Although neither one of us had ever planned for a long distance relationship, with each email correspondence we felt more drawn to each other than we had before, and so we found ourselves willing to pursue a long-distance relationship after all, even though a freelance artist and a teacher didn’t really have the financial means for doing a lot of traveling back and forth.

Several days into our correspondence, I found out that my husband’s favorite saint was St. Therese of Lisieux, who was also a favorite saint of my grandmother.  In fact, several months before, she had told me she was starting a novena to St. Therese for the intention of me finding a husband.  In addition, my husband shared with me that he had plans to end his Catholic match subscription, as he had just been rejected by two hopeful prospects, and didn’t want to continue paying for the service. But before he could end his subscription, it automatically renewed itself.  If it wouldn’t have automatically renewed, he never would have been able to read and receive my initial message to him.  As we continued to write back and forth, it became clear that God had ordained our meeting.

It is not usually a common thing for flights to be overbooked, but I can’t tell you the number of times during our correspondence and courtship that one of our flights was overbooked, resulting in an opportunity to take a different flight and receive a free ticket for another time.  My husband also sold a painting for the exact price it cost him to come and see me for the first time…not a mere coincidence.  God had finally answered my prayers-in a seemingly unexpected way no less-but Joseph was more than I had ever hoped for in a husband.  When we were married in the summer of 2012, I couldn’t believe that our good God in his mercy had finally given me everything I had hoped and prayed for.

Why I share this with you today (besides the fact that it is my anniversary) is to say that God, always has the best in mind for you.  Sometimes we jump ahead, thinking we know best, and we don’t trust him enough to wait for what He knows will make us exceedingly happy.  He writes the best stories, so why do we try and interfere and insist that by making some edits here or there, we can change our story to be even better than his?  Even up to the present day, God continues to astound me the way in the way He loves to give good gifts to his children.  Are my husband and I somehow specially “favored” by God?  Of course not…God desires to give good gifts to ALL of His children, but we have to be surrendered and ready to receive those gifts.

For the past year, we have been searching for our first home.  Of course, this is no small task.  We had to consider location, price, schooling options for our children, our personal style preferences, the fact that my husband needed studio space, etc. etc.  Our real estate agent was probably wondering what she got herself into…we were seemingly expecting it all.  Home of our dreams, the right location, and everything we wanted for a very limited price bracket. Eventually, we began to realize we were going to have to make some concessions, particularly in location, but we felt at peace with this decision (even if it meant my husband continuing to making the long commute to St. Louis every day).  Still, nothing was coming up.

I have always had the dream of living in a beautiful old house.  It’s hard to imagine my “forever home” being something other than that.  However, I began to tell God that if my dream was unreasonable, would pose too much of a strain on my husband, or not be the best thing for my children, I was willing to surrender that dream for a more practical, newer home in a style that wasn’t something I would initially choose.  After another discouraging trip to an area that we decided couldn’t work again, we were feeling defeated and wondering if we were ever going to find anything.  That same night, an older home came up for sale with almost everything we had been looking for…in our price range.  After viewing the home and feeling so much peace, we placed an offer which got accepted and are on our way to home ownership.

God is so, SO good friends.  If you surrender everything to Him, he will never disappoint you. You may go through trials, you may have times where you wonder why the road He has you on seems to be filled with so many pot holes, de-tours , and dead ends.  But I can promise you that the end of that road holds something so beautiful, so unexpected, that it will make you realize that those de-tours and dead ends had a purpose.  I am so humbled at how much the God of the universe cares for me, and for YOU.  We are so insignificant, and yet we have a God who knows the desires of our hearts and wants to give us the very best.

So for my anniversary this year, I am thanking and praising God that he still writes the best stories, even though I continually try to make revisions and edits when and where I can-thankfully He is in control of the final draft ;).  He even has my son’s need for a brother in mind, as we recently found out we are welcoming another little boy to our family in November of this year. So trust Him friends, just trust Him.  You’ll be glad you did.