Take Heart

Learning more about each other

4/19 (Good Friday) The day after Leo asked me out, I flew to Texas with my family for a week to attend an uncle’s funeral and to offer support to our family there. I will never forget the day because it was Good Friday, and we fasted and abstained from meat the whole trip while dealing with all the security checks, a missed flight, etc. I remember when we arrived at the Texas airport, hungry and exhausted, the first thing we saw was a giant banner featuring a juicy steak! I thought it was hilarious. I told my family everything really WAS bigger in Texas. (Not all of them were as amused as I was, but that only made it funnier.) When I got back from Texas, Leo was in another state with his family for a retreat. A week or two after he got back from the retreat, he had to fly out to Europe for two weeks. The humor wasn’t lost on us that we had lived 20 minutes away from each other for most of our lives, and now that we were dating, we suddenly seemed to be in a long-distance relationship. However, that didn’t stop us from talking and growing together.

The first night I was in Texas (our 1st day of dating), I told Leo off the bat that I didn’t have a college degree. It was hard for me to say as it was a sensitive topic for me, but I figured I’d give him the chance to reconsider the relationship from the start. He was very educated himself – he had a master’s degree, he had traveled all over the world, and he came from an educated family. I wasn’t sure how he’d take the news. Leo was extremely gracious about it. He looked past the circumstances and focused on me in a way that was somewhat new for me. My educational background didn’t prove to be an obstacle. It was something shameful for me, but after talking to him, I felt I could breathe a little.

We talked every day while I was in Texas. We spoke about what we wanted in life, in a relationship, and what we thought about almost everything. I told him funny stories of instances with my family on the trip, and he told me what was happening back home. The day after he asked me out and I left for Texas, his life blew up. Someone he and others volunteered with was accused of a serious crime, and it shook them all. His bosses at work (which he always got along very well with before that point) suddenly were at odds with him. Issues started surfacing with other people he saw on a regular basis. He didn’t know what was happening. He was the happiest he’d been in a long time, but his life had turned upside down in less than 24 hours. He seemed to face hardship in every direction he turned. This wasn’t a coincidence. We were taking steps towards a large part of our calling in life (marriage) – whether we knew it at the time or not – and when you follow God’s plan for your life, you’re bound to meet opposition (more on that later.)

The Holy Spirit List

As we spoke more, things continued to be crossed off my Holy Spirit list as they came up in our conversations. Leo told me he hadn’t always been a faithful Catholic. He had drifted in college, but God worked on him through the years and brought about a real conversion in his heart. My spiritual director’s words echoed in my mind: He is a convert/someone who had a great conversion, and it was a solid one. Check. Another example of him matching the list was at my birthday party. Leo had asked my friends what makes a joke funny: He wanted the formula for jokes so he could understand them better. Seeing how serious he was, my mom started a balloon fight in the room by throwing balloons at him, in which everyone joined in until we had an all-out balloon war. Leo laughed despite himself, looking bewildered at the same time. He won’t be as naturally jovial as you. Check.

One night, Leo told me seriously on the phone, “I understand God the Father’s love. I think I understand His love the most out of the whole Trinity.” This one made stop in my tracks. He knows the Father’s love. It was the last, main thing on my list that hadn’t been crossed off.

I sent Leo the following picture from my journal where I had taken notes during my spiritual direction meeting.

Checkmate.

I surprised myself somewhat by telling him in that moment of the conversation I had with my spiritual director, the list of qualities the Holy Spirit gave her, and how God said I would be meeting a man who would be my future husband. He was surprised, and I hoped I hadn’t jumped the gun in telling him about it. Despite his surprise, he noted that something about our whole relationship just worked, and it felt more than right, so he believed me about my list. I told him I almost couldn’t believe it. It seemed crazy. Leo replied, “What can I say? Victory! I get the girl.” I laughed.

The Man God had Spoken About

While Leo accepted what I had said on the surface, it took a little more time for it to sink in that he was likely my future husband. For me, I knew on day 6 of us dating that he was the one God had spoken about. It was a deep feeling I got on my flight home from Texas. Somehow, I knew that God had fashioned me for Leo and Leo for me, keeping into account our likes and dislikes and our needs while doing so. Leo and I would be good for each other and help each other to grow. I was awestruck at the realization – that God would go to such lengths to prepare us for each other and then to bring us together. Is this really the immense love that God has for His people? I knew it mentally before this, but a big part of me didn’t expect that kind of love from God for myself. This kind of stuff was for saints, not for me.

Not too long after the realization, my flight hit the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced, which terrified me since I already wasn’t a huge fan of flying. It was a sign of the opposition Leo and I would be facing in our relationship, spiritual and otherwise. Great good would come out of it, but there would be a lot of hardship on the way. I started praying a rosary to calm myself down in the shaking plane. Each time I finished a decade, I would fall asleep. I would wake up, feel the shaking plane, say another decade, and fall asleep again. In that way, I spent the rest of the flight home. I was annoyed that I couldn’t stay awake long enough to finish my rosary in one go. Then, I realized that Our Lady was lovingly soothing me to sleep after each decade. She was giving me a break from my fear of flying so that I wouldn’t have to be awake through all the turbulence (When I was awake, I would get close to panicking.) I arrived home, looking forward to seeing Leo. Knowing he was the man God had told me about, I felt more ready to tackle this next stage of my life (although I was still nervous), and I wondered what would come next.

The Good: God’s Mercy and Providence

As Leo and I continued dating, life felt surreal, like the thing of movies. We would hang out under the stars in church parking lots and talk. We would dance, have picnics, and go for walks. When it came to personal growth, God did amazing things for both of us while we dated. Personal obstacles we couldn’t overcome before, we now did. Walls that we always hit with any previous romantic interest or relationship fell. His wayward past didn’t stop me from loving him more and more, even though effects of the damage it had done were still present; I still walked with him while he continued to heal. My educational background, health problems, and emotional wounds didn’t scare him enough to leave. We were always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. By God’s grace, we continued to heal when we were away from each other and when we were together. Our relationship spurred us to grow in ways we had been too scared to grow before. Now that we had someone else to work for, a new courage rose up in us, as did a new confidence in God’s love and providence. We approached God in new ways, often when we were struggling the most, amazed at His mercy and constant help. It was bewildering.

The Bad: Practical Challenges and Fear

However, not everything was smooth sailing. There were still serious things that had to be figured out. We knew this, so as we saw God moving things so quickly, we were scared. Even though we kept moving forward, it didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. It often was. Leo was working in retail at the time, and I didn’t even have a GED. I was also still dealing with health issues that impacted my day-to-day life. God said, “Trust Me. I know where I am leading you. Move forward.” To the world, it made absolutely no sense (it made no sense to us either), but high above our ways are God’s ways, and high above our thoughts are His thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9) Seeing His hand in our relationship, we got engaged after a few months, still not knowing how the future was going to work itself out.

The Ugly Part #1: Mental health

A month after we got engaged, I decided to start meeting with a counselor. As much as Leo and I were growing together, it became clear as we got closer to one another that I had bad, emotional wounds from my past that needed to be dealt with. I didn’t want to wait until marriage to deal with them. It was hard. Leo didn’t always understand what I was going through, and many times we ended up in situations that were frustrating for both of us. We kept finding ourselves at odds with each other as we went through accelerated growing pains with everything moving so fast. Interestingly, though, no matter how bad our disagreements were (and some were serious), things always worked out and got resolved, even when they seemed impossible to overcome. At the worst moments, if I implored Mary’s help with what seemed an irreconcilable problem between Leo and I, she always responded and led us through it. Leo or I would gain a new understanding of the situation in our heart, and a way forward (even if that way forward just meant having more trust in God.) Not all the next steps were made apparent, but we were always given the next one. Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that knowing just the one, next step is all you need to move forward. We often learned this the hard way after much agonizing worry.

The Ugly Part #2: Behind-the-Scenes Spiritual Warfare

Besides practical and emotional struggles, we also had to face acute, spiritual warfare. Months after our engagement, at one of our marriage preparation meetings, we got into such a bad argument that we almost started to think of calling off the engagement. The topics and questions we’d covered in the meeting really helped us see some areas in our relationship that we could strengthen. At the same time, the serious conversation we had afterwards when we were alone triggered some deep wounds on both sides. I’m glad for it because it confirmed our weaker areas, and it also brought to light something else that was going on. I remember in the midst of our argument there was a moment where we both fell silent. We were angry and hurt, and we didn’t know what else to say to each other. I don’t know how to explain what happened next except that it was as if something foreign to me entered my mind, and its voice said smugly, “I’m in your spot [in the relationship.]” I knew instantly it was a demon’s voice. It scared me for only a second before it gave me exactly the shock I needed to see the spiritual reality of the situation and to redirect my thoughts to reconciling and throwing away any selfishness on my part. This demon had been creating havoc and disagreements in our relationship. It poked at wounds Leo had, trying to exacerbate issues. I could tell it had an intense hatred for me specifically. I was going to be a helpmate for Leo, a partner on the road to heaven. Our relationship had already spurred Leo to an even deeper relationship with God than he already had. In that moment, I had to take a breath and place my trust in God again. Demons speak loudest when something good is going to happen; They’re like frightened, cornered dogs barking. The Holy Spirit reminded me of this, and He gave me the grace not to be intimidated. Emboldened, I thought, That demon is in my spot. That’s why I’m not the one who should be afraid, because God always keeps my place for me. It took time for Leo and I to heal from that night, but we didn’t break the engagement. It was a big trial. I prayed for months to God and Mary for that demon to leave, and for other demons to leave that also became apparent. More than once, I prayerfully considered delaying our upcoming wedding. With the difficulties we were having on and off, it seemed imprudent to move forward without some kind of great change occurring.

In a year, after various helps that Mary led us to, God delivered many of those demons, which enabled both Leo and I even deeper healing than before. This happened only one month before our wedding date (which God told us not to postpone.) I told God He had cut things rather close! We learned in that year that some of the demons had been generational spirits – demons which enter a family lineage either by invitation from a past relative who committed a grave sin, or by a curse directed at the family by a witch, satanist, etc. These demons may not bother every family member, or even every generation in the family, so they can be hard to identify (they can skip generations and their footprints might only be noticeable in some), but their patterns can be identified with prayerful discernment. With help from a priest and some wise friends, we got the help we needed.

More amazing than that is, while we were not aware, God was aware that I would get pregnant almost immediately after marriage. If those demons had not been delivered, our children would have suffered similar effects to us, and so would their children, etc. By stopping the effects of any generational demons that were afflicting us and delivering us from their malice, God made sure, in His mercy, that our child would not have to face the same effects we had. Now, from Leo and I onwards, those demons had no place in our family line. We had rejected them, we were free of them, and so were all our future children. To think that our daughter will not have to suffer the same things Leo and I did is a blessing which words cannot fully describe.

Other Challenges

When it came to our other challenges – studying where we needed to, finding work to support ourselves, and finding a place to live – that’s a whole story in itself. One for the next post so this one doesn’t run too long.

Please know of my prayers for anyone who reads this. Happy (almost) New Year, and may God walk with you and bless you abundantly!