She Dreamt of Her of Future Husband
22
Days before Lilia met Joseph on CatholicMatch, she had a dream about him.
In her dream, God told Lilia that He had "created her husband according to her soul." Before her "vision," an acquaintance revealed to Lilia that her future husband was just around the corner. Lilia felt ready and optimistic about her future.
Enter Joseph...
Joseph, from Idaho, had been a member for ten months before noticing Lilia's profile in the new member's section. He liked some of her pictures, but he did not reach out via CatholicMatch messaging. He didn't try because in her profile, Lilia from Washington State, said she didn't want a long-distance relationship.
Lilia noticed that Joseph liked her photos. Intrigued by his profile, she sent him a "praying a rosary for you" emoji.
"I felt attracted to Joseph because of his faith and studiousness," she shares. "Although his pictures were somewhat low quality, I still found him cute. The fact that he had been in the seminary for several years made him stand out."
He was several hours late to the date!
On October 27, 2017, Lilia and Joseph began messaging back and forth on CatholicMatch. Then a few weeks later, they had their first video chat. A month later, on December 16, Lilia was anticipating Joseph's arrival. They had made plans for him to have dinner at her home, however, she had a long wait because Joseph ended up stuck in traffic for thirteen hours after a train derailed over a major highway.
The couple's delayed meeting didn't dampen the fun of seeing each other in person for the first time. Joseph arrived at Lilia's at 1 a.m., and Lilia had dinner waiting for him. He recalls noticing that Lilia was "all dressed up," and that she made a good first impression.
The next day, they had plans to go went swing dancing, and Lilia wore a red dress that her mother had bought her, saying, without prior knowledge, "You'll meet your future husband in it."
Little did she know, she was dancing with her future husband!
Both Joseph and Lilia felt they had met "the one," so on December 22, both of them deactivated their CatholicMatch accounts. A couple of months later, on February 11, 2018, they sealed their relationship with their first kiss. "
That night we danced, and I already knew I was dancing with my future husband—the same person that appeared in my dream," shares Lilia.
Joseph felt himself falling for Lilia because of her beauty, interest in knowledge, and her goofiness. Lilia liked Joseph's studiousness and that he challenged her intellectually.
After many fun adventures, they said their first "I love you" during a flight in March to visit Joseph's parents. They grew incredibly close as Lilia accompanied Joseph and his family during his mother's final days in July.
Then, a shooting star proposal!
After nearly a year of dating— On the 11th day of the 11th month—Lilia visited Joseph in Idaho. After a dinner with friends at Buffalo Wild Wings, Joseph took Lilia to the University of Idaho Observatory. Outside the observatory, he spread out a blanket for them to look up at the stars.
"We saw a few shooting stars, and then he put on a playlist that he had prepared for the moment, and invited me to dance," she remembers, fondly.
"Towards the end of the first song, I got down on one knee and proposed," he says.
Lilia, caught off-guard, blurted out, "What the crap! Are you sure?!"
She said yes! Just as they embraced, Lilia saw the brightest shooting star of the night.
"The biggest sign from God I'd ever seen," she thinks.
A Washington wedding and baby!
Their lives were joined in Holy Matrimony on June 22, 2019, in Olympia, Washington, near where Lilia lived.
"We had a grand celebration with about 180 guests. After the honeymoon in Rome and Greece, I moved six hours away to Idaho where Joseph was living," she shares.
Joseph and Lilia are now parents of a wonderful mischievous boy named Owen, almost a year old. Joseph is finishing up his Ph.D. in Physics, and Lilia founded a photography and design business.
"We are open to seeing where the Holy Spirit will lead us next," the couple shared.