Some people take their time to respond to online dating messages. But few take as long as Angela did.
Christopher first reached out to her on CatholicMatch in January 2014. A year went by and still she had not responded. In fact, it wasn’t until August 2015 that she got back to him.
For Angela, his message had come at the wrong time...
She had a good reason. When she had received his message, Angela was very sick. In May, she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, which affects the uterus. She spent the next year focusing on her health. “With the faith of the Lord I was able to overcome cancer and I was back healthy in the summer of 2015,” Angela said.
As Angela’s health grew stronger, so had her faith. During her battle with cancer she attended Mass often and deepened her relationship with God. For Angela, “falling in love with God prepared her for meeting me and...made her less stressed,” Christopher said.
But one day, she remembered his picture and message.
One day during that summer, she was praying the rosary when suddenly one of Chris’ profile pictures came to mind. Angela went to her computer and finally responded.
In the intervening year and a half, Christopher had been dating other women but he had ended those relationships.
Chris had also been growing in his faith. He had recently been working his way through a devotional book to prepare for consecration to Mary. “After consecrating my life to Mary from those little prayer books it’s my belief that it was the mercy of God through the intercession of Mary that gave us the grace to date and overcome all the obstacles life can throw at you to get married,” Christopher said.
He says he knew Angela was the one when she disclosed that she had had cancer before they had even met in person. Christopher took it as a sign of Mary-like humility. “She is very humble like Mary and it felt like Mary wanted me to marry her,” Christopher said.
"It felt like Mary wanted me to marry her."
After speaking with a priest, he became more convinced that marriage to Angela was the right thing. “After that I fought and did everything I had to do to get married,” Christopher said.
The couple, now both in their mid-30s, got married on December 17, 2016 and live in New Jersey.
“I knew she was in my life’s plans and that knowledge and peace I had around her gave me the confidence to fight for the relationship when need be and to follow through with the commitment of matrimony.
We have our dreams and are pursuing them as best we can. The lesson is to let go and let God, and it will work out,” Christopher added.
Despite life's challenges, the couple relies on God's goodness and plan.
In marriage, as in courtship, Christopher and Angela have been called to a Marian faith in God’s ability to provide: as a result of the cancer they are unable to conceive, but they still hope to have children. “We feel called to help to care for God's children who have been abandoned, and hopefully we will be able to adopt and are working on logistics for kids,” Christopher said.
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