My Faith journey . . . so far!

It is Father’s Day weekend and I can’t think of a better time to sit and write out my Faith Story and how I find incredible joy in my heavenly Father!

I want to begin by saying, I have always been aware of the fact that my Mom chose to give me life despite hardship or the fact that I was not planned by her, but by God.

I never recall having a father in my life as a young child. I knew that I had a huge family that loved me, a Mom, grandma, and lots of aunts and uncles. From my earliest memories, I thought that was just how our family was meant to be. I did not spend a lot of time with my mom, but I was almost always in the care of a loving relative, to which I am most grateful. Even then, I was being held in the palm of God’s hand. My Mom worked a lot, drank a lot, and argued with my family a lot. Because of our poverty, we moved around a lot and I was enrolled in many different schools. One day my mom was able to get on a public housing list and we finally got a house of our own. A cute two bedroom house within walking distance to a pretty good school. I was entering the second grade at this time. Since my mom worked as a bartender, my Aunt came to live with us and she would take me to school, feed me, and help me with homework. It took me a long time to realize that my Mom was providing the best way she knew how to at the time. I missed her, but this is only the beginning of the story.
The summer before my fourth grade year, my Mom met my stepdad. I was smitten. He was kind, listened to me and my mom, and took time to do family things with us. It was with him, that I got to spend more time with my Mom and that helped us out a lot. They eventually married and we moved to his house. They never could have any other children, but I was the apple of their eyes. I had never encountered Church, Jesus, or God before this time. I had been told how to say night prayers, but I did not know who God was or why I would go to him trusting that he loved me enough to listen. With the marriage of my Mom and Stepdad, we started to go to church with my Stepdad and his family, **gasp** they were Catholic. I was bored out of my mind those first few years, I would count the bricks on the walls during the homilies. Once I finished elementary school, my family became very concerned about keeping me in public school because we lived in a terrible school district. So my family made the sacrifice to send me, a unbaptized Catholic girl, to a very modest Catholic school. I was like a fish out of water . . . it weighed on my self esteem. I did not really fit in and it was challenging to make friends. I eventually made friends and it was during this time at this school I learned my first lessons about faith and about a loving father who cared about me enough to send his son to die for me. It was the first time I was told about sin and how I receive absolution for those sins. So this non-catholic girl goes to confession! That was probably the most important thing I could have ever done, I felt a change in my heart –a peace that I had never experienced before. I would continue to learn about the catholic faith and the Trinity, but I would remain unbaptized. I also had two of the best grandparents in the world praying for me and setting a good, catholic example for me. They were such amazing people and I would see them every afternoon after school because they lived across from the school and I would stay there every afternoon until my family got off of work. By the way, my mom was able to get a job at a school and gave up drinking and working as a bartender. My stepdad provided well for us and we were a happy family.
I finished my time at the catholic school and once again we had to choose a school for me to go to for high school. My family couldn’t afford to send me to the only catholic high school in our hometown, so I was sent to a very protestant Christian school. It was during my freshman year, that I was really growing in my Catholic faith and even though my mom was not catholic she would bring me to church every Sunday and I joined the youth group! Finally, a place I fit in! That was a turning point for me.

I joined the youth group and had an awesome youth leader, made some really great friends and deeply desired to be baptized into the catholic faith. My family was supportive of this, so I began to meet with a priest weekly to prepare for the sacrament of Baptism and First Communion. I was 14 years old at this time. In December 1991, I was baptized!!! I was so excited and on fire for Jesus! The next day, I received my first Holy Communion. I began to volunteer for the church and continued to go to many catholic youth events, which fostered my growing faith! Now, becoming Catholic was not too popular with my peers at the Christian School. I was always under attack for my beliefs and challenged. Now this was not a bad thing, it was a very good thing. I would go to CCD every Wednesday with new questions on how to defend my faith. This helped me to never feel the need to attack another's faith or religion. I learned so much from my peers that were not catholic that I hoped I helped them see that we can all live peacefully together and respect our differences and celebrate all that we have in commone. This process really cemented my faith and allowed me to go to a new level that few of my peers in the Catholic church were encountering. I would go to these great Catholic retreats where I would just be buoyed in hope that God was eternally concerned for my well being and then I began to lead some of these retreats.
During the summer before my Junior year, I was able to go see the Pope and there was a transformation that happened in my soul and I have never looked back. It was just the preparation I needed to face the hardships that were coming my way. It was during my junior year that we found out that my stepdad had a terminal illness and it was a tremendous strain on the family. He got better for a time, but relapsed and we were devastated when he passed away during my senior year. I ended up stop playing sports and became very academic, I was on and off again with my boyfriend of 3 years and just restless and sad. My mom resumed her partying lifestyle and I was home alone a great deal of the time. Even during this time, my faith grew leaps and bounds and it was the first time of many that I learned that grace sometimes grows in darkness and that God’s hand is always protecting us from the fall, if we just trust Him.
By the time I graduated, I was still growing in my faith but I was unable to go away to college like I dreamed. I needed to stay home and care for my Mom. She was fragile and the only family I had left so I wanted to try to keep that relationship growing. I ended up going to a local university and getting a degree in psychology. I spent the majority of my time in service to the church in some way or another. I did a lot of volunteer work/ministry for the university Catholic Student Center and worked as a youth minister for money to pay for gas, tuition, etc. I had a multitude of jobs. At one time, I worked three jobs, went to school, and did all of my volunteer work.
One of the most difficult times during this time was when the ICE STORM came in and stopped our lives or so it seemed. We were without electricity for many days and fortunately we had a gas stove to cook meals. It gave my Mom and I a lot of time to talk. It was during this time that I was really wanting to search for my father that I never knew and meet him. I just wanted to lay eyes on him and know why he never wished to know me. Well, to make a long story short, my mom ended up telling me that the father listed on my birth certificate was not my real father and that she had been raped and I was conceived during that most difficult time in her life. I was blown away and shook up a great deal. Fortunately, I had a great set of spiritual directors who helped me to learn to appreciate my Mom’s ultimate sacrifice of choosing life for me, but also learning that no matter how or when I was conceived GOD wanted me here! This growth took a great deal of time to acquire, but it has made me who I am today. I never look at one soul and forget that God wanted them to be a part of our world. I was wanted more by God than by anyone else, and I am grateful that my Mom turned out to want me too! It turned out my biological father died before I was born, so I never met him. I pray that he made peace with God. This reveal of how I was conceived helped me to understand that pain and hurt my mom endured and it helped me appreciate all the things she had done right and forgive all the things I felt she had done that seemed not so motherly during my growing up years. We now have a much better relationship!
It turns out that staying home for college was God’s will for me. I met some of the most wonderful people and I still am friends with the best of them. During my last year, I wanted to try to move out of my Mom’s house, she was remarrying a man with two teenage sons and the space was very limited. I tried to get a better paying job and found one, but was still unable to afford to move out on my own. When I went to apply for this better paying job, I was in the parking lot and I heard a voice tell me that I would meet my husband there.
I thought that I was finally going crazy. I went in and interviewed, got the job, and then met the boss. I thought to myself, God you must have a funny sense of humor! I only met men who I thought were old enough to be my father. Then one day, out of the clear blue sky, my future husband walked into the showroom and the rest was history. We hit it off right away and less than eight months later we were engaged. I was determined to finish my classes and do well in my biology classes that were kicking me in the pants, so we planned the wedding for July 2000!
I was never so happy to finish school because I was ready to become a wife and eventually a mother! We began our wedding preparation and our wedding was perfect! We still laugh about the silly things that happened that day!
We were living on a modest income, so before we married we bought an affordable house in the country and spent many of the months before the wedding remodeling the home so it would be ready for us to move into once we were married. I loved that little house! So much love in putting it all together. We were married for barely two months when I noticed I was spotting after being intimate. We were not using any form of contraception and were fully open to life, but I was unsure what was going on, so I called the doctor. We were both virgins when we married and for some reason, I could not understand why only now my period was acting abnormal. I was pregnant – already! I thought for some reason it would take us awhile. I was ecstatic and scared because I knew that bleeding and pregnancy don’t usually go hand in hand. So they began the process of checking hcg levels. The first draw was on a Friday and we prayed like crazy people that our baby would grow and live! Monday’s draw showed that I was already miscarrying. We were both heartbroken and so the beginning of our marriage was filled with sorrow for a long time. We continued to be open to life, but my body was clearly not healthy and we spent the next 7 years trying to find answers to help us! The process was long, hard, expensive, and full of desolation. We still grew in faith, but it was at a much slower pace. Suffering was our teacher. God was our only consolation!
We met a lady who offered to teach us CrMS and make a referral to Dr. Hilgers. That was in 2007. She was just having her seventh child and so the process for the referral took awhile, but by then we knew that we were on the right track to better help for me. My husband had to really push for this because I just wanted to adopt! I was ready to be a mom yesterday and this process with Dr. Hilgers was NOT a fast one. We were accepted as his patient in 9/07, in January 2008 they called and scheduled surgery after my hormone profile was completed. He started me on t3 immediately. My lap was set for July 2, 2008, so we spent our 8th anniversary in Omaha and I was doing a bowel prep J Not so much romance happening there! The lap successfully showed us that I had severe endo, lots of adhesions, and pcos. I needed an additional surgery to correct these issues. Before my first surgery, I would bleed heavy for nearly 60 days at a time and then go awhile without a period, but after surgery I was finally having regular cycles with the assistance of post peak progesterone support.
My second surgery was scheduled for Sept 13, 2008. September was crazy for SWLA that year and in two weeks we evacuated twice for hurricanes. Once for Gustav and the next for Ike. When we left for Ike, we just made our way to Omaha. We knew we already had hotel rooms. We spent one night in Little Rock (with both our families) and one night in the worst hotel ever in Kansas City. I was never so happy to be in Omaha! This surgery was so hard though and I remember crying and begging God to please use this to bring me healing and to bring us babies!
Six months after that surgery, we were blown away to find out we were pregnant. I had a hard time with this pregnancy, but was still thrilled. That pregnancy ended up in a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and I just cried out to God “WHY”! My spirit suffered so much, I had to force myself to praise God during that storm. I knew I needed him, but I could not understand that in his all-powerful ways, why he allowed that baby grow in the wrong place. I just knew that if he willed the baby to be moved to my womb, they baby would have been moved. I had to eventually come to terms with the fact that God knew this was happening and allowed it for some reason.
Two months later, when I was chatting with Dr. Hilgers, he told me that the loss of the left tube (it was the one most severely damaged from endo) was probably going to improve our chances of having a healthy pregnancy from this point on. I had to force myself to trust his words. So I took several months to heal and then we started to TTC again. My husband was certain that we were not called to adoption yet and this caused a lot of pain in my life, but I still gave myself to him and God by being open to life. Once again, during the Easter season, we found out we are pregnant again! We went nearly 8 years with no pregnancy and then two pregnancies in one year. I was guarded with this new pregnancy, but God has allowed this one to grow in the right place and to continue to grow. I am still amazed that God is allowing us to become parents in the flesh and my most sincere prayer is that he will prepare us to be good examples for this child, that our faith will lead them to grow their faith and find the assurance we found in serving Christ, not man. I am amazed at life, but most importantly the giver of life. Our lives have not been without suffering, but it has also not been without joy!
Even with the cross of losing my job at one of the most important times in my life and when I need it the most, God is calling me to stretch and trust him and His will. I believe that this, too, is going to be a good thing, simply because I have learned that God has never left us in a pit – forsaken. He always redeems those who seek redemption!