He Didn't Care That She Hadn't Dated Before

When the time came to renew her subscription to CatholicMatch, Sarah hesitated.

It’s wasn’t because of the cost—though that had been a factor in the past. It was because she had had a negative experience with someone she met, who she says took her “innermost fears” and “verbalized them” to her. That fear was her insecurity over her lack of dating experience.

Sarah was worried her lack of dating experience would make her a less attractive date.

“A woman who has reached her 20's without ever having a man (for whatever reason) ask her out on a date naturally wonders if there is something wrong with her. Because this person had verbalized this fear to me, I had every intention of allowing my subscription to run out after my first year. After all, if there was something wrong with me, why bother putting myself through the heartbreak?” Sarah said.

On the day of the renewal, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. “Something or someone was prodding me to go forward and renew. And I still remember hitting the button at the last second to allow automatic renewal to go through,” Sarah said.

Then, nothing happened. At least not right away.

She also worried about the subscription cost. But God provided it and more...

Then, during one particular Sunday Mass, a thought entered Sarah’s mind.

“I had the thought that I should light a candle for my future husband’s intentions. This wasn't something I’d ever done before and I didn’t normally have the cash to pay for a candle. But I did that week, so I lit one. It made me feel a little better, like I was showing God that I was hopeful,” Sarah said.

She continued to do this for three weeks. Each week, somehow, the money materialized out of nowhere—once she found the cash on the floor, another week it was from a tip she got as a hostess.

Then something happened.

“Then David sent his first message and he was everything I had ever imagined,” Sarah said.

They took things nice and slow at the beginning, limiting their conversation to texts.

Sarah had waited a long time, but she did not rush into things.

When they first started messaging each other, Sarah did not have a cell phone and she was unwilling to talk via land line because that meant David could get her address. “I simply couldn't do that yet,” Sarah said.

But soon she was able to save enough money to buy a cheap cell phone. Even then she hesitated.

“Oh, I was so mean! I made that sweet man just text me until it was a full month after his first CM message to me!” Sarah said.

One night he asked if they could talk rather than text. Sarah asked him to be patient.

“I’ll wait as long as it takes! Years if I must!” he responded.

Like Sarah, David, then in his early 30's, had also spent a lot of time waiting for the right person. When he connected with Sarah in January 2017, he had been on CatholicMatch since 2005, using it “off and on” for a dozen years.

Finally, Sarah agreed to talk. “I was so unbelievably nervous before our first phone call,” Sarah said.  “But as I heard his voice for the first time I was instantly at ease and I felt like I was speaking with an old friend.”

Sarah's parents were nervous about online dating, even asking to sit nearby!

One month later, Sarah faced another milestone: David asked her out on a date.

But this time it might have been her parents who were more nervous. They were skeptical about whether online dating would work for Sarah and were suspicious about David’s motives. Her father even wanted to shadow Sarah on her first date, sitting nearby just to make sure she was OK.

“Thankfully, I talked him out of that idea,” Sarah said.

Their date actually begun at a Latin Mass, which meant that the first time David saw Sarah she was wearing a veil. Afterwards they were out to a Japanese restaurant and then an art institute in Dayton, Ohio, near where Sarah lived.

(David lived about an hour away in Columbus.)

But Sarah was still struggling with insecurity.

“I wasn’t actually expecting this date to go anywhere. Yes, I did have strong feelings for him and desired a relationship. But at that point I still believed something terrible was wrong with me and that it wouldn't take long for David to see whatever it was and run,” Sarah said.

Instead, David asked if he could join her for Mass every Sunday.

“What!? Really?!” Sarah responded.

David persevered, asking to meet her for Sunday Mass each week.

They continued dating and the following month, in April, David met Sarah’s parents. The meeting almost didn’t happen—due to apparent scheduling conflicts.

“There will be other weekends! This just isn't the weekend!” Sarah’s mom told her.

“But something in me persisted that this had to be the weekend that my parents met David!” Sarah said.

Sarah and David met up at Mass then headed to her home where she learned that her 14-year-old dog was near death. What should have been a happy day for the family quickly turned somber as David’s first meeting with Sarah’s Dad became a trip to the vet to put her dog down.

“That night my father called me and told me he had a deep respect for David and was really looking forward to having him as his son-in-law,” Sarah said. “Dad didn’t give those kinds of compliments out often.”

Not long after David met Sarah's parents, tragedy struck.

Five days later, Sarah’s father suffered a heart attack.

“I remember begging him to breathe, and trying to do CPR and not being able to because he was a large man. I remember calling 911 and screaming our address at them and them not being able to understand me,” Sarah said.

He was gone before they arrived.

“I called David and screamed and cried to him. The next thing I knew I was on the floor of the kitchen, my face on the floor listening to David pray what Latin prayers he knew,” Sarah said.

But through it all, they've supported each other and will for the rest of their lives.

She finds reassurance in knowing that David had been through what she was going through: his mother had died about a decade before.

“In only the last year that David and I have known each other he has helped me bury a dog, then my Father, and finally my last remaining grandmother who just could not handle having lost her son. He was with me through the worst year of my life thus far and I believe he got me through it,” Sarah said.

That year ended on a happy note though: in December, five days before Christmas, they got engaged. Sarah and David are set to be married in June 2018.