“I thought online dating was for all the failures who didn't meet their match in college or early years of their career,” Jennifer (Jenny) says of online dating.
She was determined to meet her future husband the old-fashioned way.
“However, when a dear friend pointed out my lack of social life . . . I opened up to the thought of online dating, specifically CatholicMatch. As a woman with a physical disability and living with God at the center of her life, I struggled to believe there was a man, not only as committed to the faith as I was, but also open to the unique lifestyle my stroke recovery demanded,” she explains.
At 31 and already a stroke survivor, Jenny’s expectations were low...
Through the year, she was surprised to meet several wonderful men, but didn’t feel God calling her to pursue relationships with any of them.
After a few months, her membership lapsed and she didn’t renew it. But come Advent that year, she noticed several new message notifications on her free profile. Willing to wait for the “unlock messages” feature to kick in, she returned to her profile in January to read what had been sent.
“I was intrigued by one who asked about my practice of praying a daily rosary and shared his experience of doing the same,” Jenny recalls. “I opened his profile and the dropping of my jaw quickly followed. He was so cute!” Dan was just a year older than Jenny, agreed with all the Catholic teachings, loved his family, and was devoted to Mother Mary. “I messaged him back immediately, hoping my 11-day wait didn’t make me too late!”
For his part, Dan had tried a nondenominational Christian dating app with little success.
“Even though I'm sure there were many wonderful Christian women on that Christian dating app, I found that the longer I was on it, and the more Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc... practicing women I came across, the more I realized how important being a Catholic was to me,” he says. He knew he wanted a future spouse to share his faith. “So I thought to myself, ‘If it's God's plan for me to find a loving woman and get married, then CatholicMatch is where I'm going to find her’," he recalls.
He signed up for a one-year subscription just before Christmas 2022… and two weeks later, ran across Jenny’s profile.
“I was instantly stunned by her!” he remembers.
The two messaged back and forth daily for three months, and had a video date in March of 2023, and set up their first date for April 1st. Dan drove from his home in Pentwater, Michigan, to Jenny’s town of Wheaton, Illinois. He planned to join in author Jenny’s book promotion, at a local event called Authorfest at the local library.
“Which could have been a very awkward, boring first date!” Jenny laughs. But Dan held his own! Jenny was impressed with the way he socialized with visitors, held her microphone while she read an excerpt aloud from her memoir, and sat with her at her book table. “He was easygoing, helpful, encouraging, and was unphased by my need for a wheelchair to get around our large library!”
It was obvious to both of them that their connection was worth pursuing.
So began their long-distance dating, which is always an obstacle on its own–complicated further because Jenny was no longer able to drive. Jenny’s supportive parents volunteered to do a “Jenny trade-off” every other weekend, and would drive her half the distance into Michigan, where Dan would then pick up his girlfriend and bring her to Pentwater for the weekend. And then they’d repeat it in reverse to return Jenny to Illinois!
On top of this, Jenny faced the unique cross of having a disability, which had overturned her life in 2015.
“My physical disability was an insecurity I had to overcome. After suffering a near-fatal, hemorrhagic stroke, my life was turned upside down. I went from a fully independent, athletic, social graduate student, to a fully paralyzed stroke patient overnight,” she says. She spent years in rehabilitation to regain strength and physical function, as well as navigating her new identity. Her stroke caused her serious relationship to end, too, and she struggled to believe there was anyone who could embrace the unique lifestyle she now led.
She leaned on God’s love for her to get her through the toughest of times.
“At the time Dan and I met, I was comfortable in my own skin. My weakness, my need to walk with a cane and sometimes use a wheelchair, my inability to drive, my sometimes slurred speech, my shaky vision--all those things caused challenges in my life but they were also gifts. I lived life at a slower pace, with much creativity and flexibility,” she explains.
Suffering and illness offered her a splinter of Christ’s Cross, and she grew closer to God simply because of her daily suffering. Dan was drawn to the way God was working through Jenny’s disability, something that wouldn’t have been possible without that devastating stroke.
Five months into dating, they knew they were meant for each other.
On August 26th of 2023, Dan proposed on Jenny’s front porch where they had met in person for the first time.
He quickly found a job in Wheaton and moved there. One year after their first date, they were joined in Holy Matrimony on April 6, 2024.
The couple reside together in Wheaton, and are expecting their first child on Christmas Day.
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