Sandy:
The day that I joined Catholic Match was the biggest step of faith I had
made in a long time. Although much time had gone by since my late
husband passed away, I knew that I was still in the middle of my own
healing. I had been married to my grade school sweetheart for 26
years and felt overwhelmed at the thought of “putting myself out there” to start
a potentially new relationship. And on the Internet, no
less! “Sandy”, I thought to myself… “WHAT are you doing??”
But in the middle of my fear, I remembered that I wasn’t in this alone. I
had asked Our Lord to watch over me on this journey, so I knew deep inside that
I didn’t have anything to fear. And besides, the Catholic Match
site seemed so warm and inviting…it WAS Catholic after all, and had as its
patron saint, St. Raphael, my favorite Archangel! I took a lot of time
developing my profile. I wanted to make it clear who I was, what I
could offer, and what I was looking for. I didn’t have a desire to
“date”, but instead wanted to enter into “courtship”, allowing Christ to be the
center of any future relationship.
I was also familiar with
so-called “Catholic” men who didn’t hold fast to the teachings of the Catholic
faith, especially when it came to the virtue of chastity….after all, if a man
couldn’t show his love for me through his own self-control before marriage, how
would he ever “lay down his life for me” after we were married.
This was so integral to any future relationship that I was bold enough to
include it in my profile. Although I knew it wouldn’t be popular,
in hindsight, it proved to be the perfect way to allow any truly virtuous
Catholic men to rise and stand apart from the crowd. And although
it took a while, one knight in shining armor named Joe, rose up and captured my
heart.
Joe:
Being a lumberjack in northern Minnesota leaves very little time to
attend singles activities. After noticing an ad for the Catholic
Match site in a Catholic newspaper, I decided to check it out. I
would drive 65 miles round trip every other day to use the computer at the
public library to write my profile, post it and check through the matches that
it generated. I had quite a few e-mail conversations with Catholic ladies over a
2 yr period, but nothing quite clicked. I just couldn’t seem to
find someone from this area with the same values that I had. I was almost ready to quit,
but was inspired to give it one last try.
This time, I expanded my
search to include the whole country. By doing that, I was able to
find 147 profiles that generally matched what I was looking for.
From there, I went through each profile in detail, which then narrowed
the match list to 14. After making contact with several women, one
lady stood out above all of the rest. I liked Sandy’s profile…it
said what other’s didn’t say. She was the only one that was up
front about her orthodox Catholic values. Sandy was a lady that said what she
meant and meant what she said. After about 1 month of e-mailing
each other, I decided that it was time for us to talk on the phone. And man, did
we talk! Although that first conversation lasted 3 hours, it only
seemed like a few minutes. And each one after that was just as
special, with our longest conversation lasting over 6 hrs! A
friend of mine laughed and said, “You two are worse than a couple of
teenagers!” With all of our long conversations, I knew it was time
for the next step…our first meeting!
Sandy:
I knew that Our Lord was guiding our relationship because in all of my
phone conversations with Joe, we seemed to be in His presence, outside of
time. Even the day we had our 6 hr phone call, we were both amazed
at how time seemed to stand still. After about a month, Joe and I
prayed and decided that we wanted to enter into courtship together, to see if
Our Lord was calling us to be married. We both went “Inactive” on
CM, and focused on our first meeting. We decided that I would be
the one to visit Joe first, since I had vacation time available sooner than he
was able to travel to see me in NM. But there was one conversation
I had to have with Joe before we met, and I wasn’t sure how he would
react. But like Queen Esther in the Old Testament, I entered into
fasting and prayer and then left it in God’s hands. The time
arrived, and God’s grace gave me the strength to present to Joe the TEST that
might stop our budding relationship in its tracks.
Joe:
When Sandy told me she wanted to wait until her wedding to have her first
kiss, I was more than a little confused. She explained that she
knew that she could be weak, even with a kiss, and she didn’t want to place
either of our souls in jeopardy by crossing that line. I still wasn’t quite sure
what she was telling me, but I told her I would think about what she said and
let her know my answer the next time we talked. At first I thought she meant
that she wanted to wait until marriage to have a physical relationship, which
was what I wanted as well. Well, the Holy Spirit got through… it
FINALLY dawned on me what Sandy was saying, and with it came the inspiration to
tell her what was on my heart to say!
Sandy:
That day of waiting was such a test of my faith!! But God
was faithful and Joe’s answer swept me off my feet! He told me,
“Sandy, the first kiss from you would be a kiss well worth waiting for.” At that
moment, Joe captured my heart. No matter what the future would
bring or how the first meeting went, I knew that I had fallen in love with this
man!
Joe:
I was more than
a little nervous that weekend of our first meeting. But
as I got to know Sandy more, our conversations came easily and for the first
time I had the courage to ask to hold her hand ( Hubba,
Hubba!).
Sandy:
Joe and I both enjoyed getting to know one another that weekend through
simple things like eating meals together, praying at Our Lady’s statue, visiting
with Joe’s friends and family, and kneeling in prayer after receiving Our Lord
in Holy Communion. The highlight for me was when Joe asked my
permission to hold my hand as we took a walk at his brother’s farm.
My spirit soared as we walked…Joe was truly my knight who enjoyed
treating me like a lady! With the pressures of a physical relationship cast aside
because of our earlier conversation, our relationship grew deeper and deeper
with our Lord always at its center. We continued to feel outside
of time, and before long, Joe had made a decision to move to New Mexico to
pursue our courtship. At the end of March 2007, Joe had found a
studio apartment and began the task of looking for work.
Joe:
I really didn’t have any qualms about moving to New Mexico to be nearer
to Sandy. I felt that the Lord was closing doors for me in
Minnesota and tying up a lot of loose ends. Sure, I was a little
nervous about getting settled and finding work, but Sandy had taught me to put
my plans in God’s hands, start walking and let Him guide the way.
Before long, I had a place to live and a job. The more time
I spent with Sandy, the more time I wanted to spend with her. I
wasn’t in NM long before I took the biggest leap of faith in my
life!! I never was one to make much of a commitment to anyone in
my life, and to propose to Sandra was indeed a big step! I remember praying on
the night of May 10th (Thursday), asking Jesus what I
should do. It came back clearly from our dear Lord that I should trust in Him,
and to proceed as I saw fit. Part of the next day I spent looking
for an engagement ring. The search continued on Saturday morning, when I found
just the perfect ring!
Sandy: I had been hopeful that Joe might ask me to marry him,
but I never saw it coming! The day that he proposed, I was at his
apartment helping him with the last of his chores before we were to leave for a
concert. Joe had left for a short time to go to confession, and by
the time he returned, I was sitting on the couch, in the middle of folding his
laundry. He sat down next to me and said that he had a couple of
questions to ask me, but that I had to move over because I was sitting on his
side of the couch. Even then, I didn’t have any clue…I just
thought it was his little idiosyncrasy…after all it WAS his
apartment.
Joe: I wanted the proposal to be a complete surprise, so I had
to be careful not to spill the beans until the appropriate moment. The reason
that I asked Sandy to move to the other side of the couch was because the ring
was hidden behind our Blessed Mother’s picture just behind where Sandy was
sitting! Everything went according to plan…the surprise was
complete until the moment I got down on one knee to propose. Sandy went blank
for about 45 seconds, then jumped up, threw her arms around my neck and said,
“YES!”
Sandy: From that moment on, everything became a flurry of
activity. I thought for sure that we would have to wait until the
fall to book the Church, which might place a hardship on our family
members. But Our Lord was gracious, and the Church had an open
time at the end of August, barely 3 months away. I don’t know how
we did it, but God’s grace abounded and everything fell into place.
The wedding would be small, with just a few close friends, as well as my
dad, my son and daughter-in-law, and my daughter in the wedding party.
Joe’s brother and his close friends began planning their trip out to be
his groomsmen. At first, when Joe and I told everyone that they
would witness our first kiss at our wedding Mass, they were in disbelief.
But that soon changed to excitement at the gift of experiencing something
so precious, but so unheard of in this day and age. Everything
seemed to be going according to our plans, except for one final TEST that we
never expected, just 10 days before the wedding.
Joe:
My landlord had just
finished varnishing some cabinets in the garage connected to my
apartment. The fumes were so bad that I couldn’t sleep
there. In a kind gesture, he invited me to stay in one of the
rooms at his Bed and Breakfast until the wedding. But I have
sensitivity to certain chemicals and the chlorine in the linens was too much for
my sinuses. After having dinner with Sandy and saying our evening
prayers together, for the next 10 nights I would leave her apartment and go to
my room, watch TV for a few hours, then take my pillow and sleep the rest of the
night in the front seat of my Ford Ranger truck. I would then wake
up in the morning and meet Sandy at her apartment so that we could have
breakfast and say morning prayers together before she left for work.
Sandy would always have a sympathetic pout and say that I looked like,
“Something the cat dragged in!”.
Sandy: I felt sorry for Joe…I even rationalized to him that
because it was so close to our wedding day, he could just sleep on my couch
until then. But Joe wouldn’t have it…his chivalrous nature
wouldn’t permit it. He saw it as a challenge and he was going to succeed.
This was truly the man I wanted to be King of my
heart! Although our wedding day was a blur of excitement, like
wedding days usually are, the one moment when time stood still was when I kissed
my husband for the first time. I knew without any doubt that this
was the man that God had chosen just for me.
Joe:
As we write
this, we are celebrating our 2nd anniversary since meeting on CM, as
well as 10 months of being newlyweds. Our marriage is everything that I thought
it would be. Our Lord Jesus continues to be at the very center of
our lives. Sandy is a prize well worth winning, and yes, her kiss
was well worth waiting for!!
