This Story begins in October 2013

Back in October of 2013 I had decided to pull Big One from public school and homeschool.  He just wasn’t fitting their mold.  I was sitting in the kitchen of a good friend with 2 other mom’s who homeschool who were there giving me advice and encouragement. I was not a Christian, but all these women were.  And Big One was.  He had been saved at a Good News Club when he was 7.

I grew up Catholic and was very active in my church after about the 5th grade. Before that we were Easter Catholics. But around 5th grade I asked my parents if we could start going to church, they couldn’t think of a reason why not and so we did.  They became Eucharistic ministers, my sister and I went to CCD (like Sunday school).  I had been baptized as a baby, my sister hadn’t so she got baptized.  We made our first communion.  Eventually our confirmation- incidentally that’s how I met my husband, but that’s another story for another day, but suffice to say God has been working in our lives through our entire time together. When I was in college I taught CCD. Hubby was an alter server, went to Catholic School for 11 years. We were active Catholics.

Then we went to college, and we got married, and we had infertility, and we couldn’t have kids. We went through infertility treatments, finally after 3 IVFs we had Big One. He was born with seizures, he had developmental delays. We were angry.  We drifted from the church.  Things didn’t make sense. We stopped going to church.  We put all our effort and energy into raising Big One.  Going to EEGs, early intervention, PT, OT, speech. Hubby called himself an Athiest for a while, but then was more just nothing. I was angry with God, I questioned how a God who was loving and grace filled could take two people who loved each other so much, wanted children so much, make them infertile, and then finally when their dream is realized they get a sick child. I didn’t NOT believe in God, but I had no idea who God was, or why He did what He did.

In my defense, in our church we weren’t taught to have a relationship with God, not a personal one.  At least that’s how hubby and I recall it.  We weren’t encouraged to read the Bible, we had misselets we read during mass. Excerpts from different parts of the Bible. We weren’t taught to just have a conversation with Him we were taught, to recite prayers- The Our Father, The Hail Mary, The Nicene Creed. We were told when to stand, when the sit, when to kneel. We were told we must confess to a priest, we must be good to get to Heaven.  It all just didn’t make sense.  How did that reconcile with a loving God?

When my son started kindergarten he started asking to go to Good News Club, I did some research, it was a Bible based Baptist club.  I said no. He persisted and I dug in my heels.  I had been indoctrinated that Catholicism was all there was. (In fact I had been told had I married a non-Catholic I would be disowned).  The following year he asked again.  This time my heart softened.  If he wanted to go this bad who was I to stop him. I mean really, what bad could come of it. Within his first class he was “Saved”.  I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to get it. I was still mad. At this point we hadn’t been able to have any more children. But a couple months after Big one Was saved I became pregnant with Little one (now I am not saying the two events are related at all, because I don’t believe that).  But what I do believe is that it opened my eyes to the fact that miracles happen in our sights every day but we miss them.

For all intents and purposes little one should not be here. I have a severe case of PCOS. According to my doctor looking at my ovaries there is no way I have ever ovulated. And my husband has so few sperm that together they had to inject his sperm into my eggs, and in order to do that they had to use an acidic solution to soften the shell on my egg (this was to get Big One).  Little one, she came about naturally, like all babies do- by the stork ;).  She was a miracle. At 5 weeks I started bleeding, and they said I miscarried.  I think that was the first time I prayed, but I wasn’t sure what/who I was praying to. I just needed another miracle. And I had her.

But back to October 2013, the reason I knew these ladies is they all belonged to the church that put on the Good News Club and also the youth group that Big One managed to get me to send him to. As I was sitting in her kitchen she was talking about an incident with her grandchild that caused her to have to turn to the verse they were studying in Bible study.  I asked her what verse that was-

Philippians 4:8New International Version (NIV)

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Something came over me when she said that, a warmth.  A tingling feeling that what I heard was truth.  And over the next couple months I too became saved.  Many people who knew be before and after said they had never seen such a transformation in someone as they had me  going from an non-believer to a believer.  They had heard of such things but never seen it themselves.

I became immersed in my faith.  I eventually left the church that we had been attending with these wonderful women, mostly because I wasn’t a fan of the preaching style of the Pastor, and because we had visited a church as a family with some friends and I fell in love.

So I started going, just me and the kids every Sunday. I started going to Bible study, I started reading my Bible and I was walking as obediently as any sinner can I think. But my husband resisted.  Sometimes he made snide comments.  But after a while I think he realized they hurt and he made the decision he wanted his children to be raised with faith so he played his part. He even started coming to church with us every week in April of 2015.

But he wasn’t a believer. He walked like a Christian, talked like a Christian, and hung out in a Christian circle but wasn’t a believer.  But my friends and I prayed every day, fervently from April of 2014, for the Lord to Soften his heart to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. To allow him to allow Jesus into his heart as Lord and Savior.  Eventually hubby said he wanted faith but he just didn’t have it.

He felt like it was something that he would wake up and have all the answers.  I explained that’s not how it worked, that he had to make the choice to jump off the dock and then God would help him swim.

And I continued to pray.  Through my breakdown I prayed even harder. I wanted to know that when I died he would be in eternity with me.

Which leads me to last night. We had some friends over for dinner who are struggling, and thought we are too, there is always something you can do, even if it’s just dinner and an ear. After they left I was changing the couch sheet because of my OCD and the wife had sat on the couch, when he pulls me into the kitchen and informs he has decided to believe there is a God. I grabbed him and hugged him so tight.  He told me to loosen up it was hurting his back, I couldn’t. I was too happy. I pulled away, I asked him does this mean you have accepted Jesus into your heart as your Lord? And he said Yes.

In the past 7.5 months of this deep depression and anxiety. I can honestly tell you I have not felt such joy and happiness.  I was so excited I had to tell my ladies who pray for him daily. We are all overjoyed.  We could see the Lord working in his life, and how close he was, but still, God is so good.

On my Facebook last night I said:

Sometimes God answers prayers on the most ordinary days, in the most ordinary of ways. But He never fails to answer them, in his timing.

““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:8-9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God in His perfect timing brought my husband to him.  He didn’t wait till our life was in order, in fact our life is in shambles, we are at our darkest point. He said he still has questions- and I said we all do. Then hubby said “why did He have to bring us to such a furnace”, and my answer to that was And I said, and who was in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego? God. And He is here with us.

Thank you God, for answering my biggest prayer. And for those of you waiting for someone you love to come to God, in my experience, your walk is the best testimony.  I walked as obediently and as patiently as I could, and I never once stopped praying for his salvation.

Thank you God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  All the praise and glory to Him.