He decided to give it just one more month...
Daniel, in his mid-twenties, was just about ready to give up on CatholicMatch. He’d been on the site for almost two years without success and, like many others, found the whole experience more frustrating than helpful. It had reached the point where he was just about ready to drop his subscription. He’d joined the site because, having had previous relationships with non-Catholics, he had decided the only course for him was a marriage centered on Catholic faith. But so far things hadn’t worked out and he was fed up.
Nevertheless, he hesitated and decided that, after all, he might as well stick around for one last month.
PC: Johnson Photography
During that month he happened to notice a beautiful girl in her twenties who had joined only two months before. Her name was Allison, and she seemed to share many of his fundamental beliefs. Deciding it couldn’t hurt to take a chance, he messaged her, trying to make her laugh. Most happily, he succeeded.
After messaging and texting back and forth for about a month, it was time to meet in person.
They made a date to get together at Sir Pizza in Lansing (“Pizza is our favorite food,” Dan explained). Dan was excited, but Allison was nervous as this was her first time at online dating. They chatted over food, then took a walk down by the river, and her nerves gradually dissipated as she found him easy to talk to.
During their walk, they passed by a music store. Dan surprised her by inviting her inside. There he took down a guitar and started playing, revealing his passion for music.
While Dan was playing for her, Allison felt suddenly overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. From that moment on, she was sure she had met her future husband.
Two dates later, they went to their first Mass together, after which Dan asked her to be his girlfriend. By this point he was sure he’d met his future wife as well.
Having opposite personalities, each can compensate for the other's weaknesses.
The two found much to like in each other. Allison admired Dan’s adventurous and energetic personality, his willingness to fight for what he believes in, and his cooking and music skills. Dan, for his part, loved Allison for her thoughtfulness, kindness, and loyalty (and he still thinks she’s beautiful).
PC: Johnson Photography
Their personalities were almost opposite, which proved a help to the relationship as well, as each was able to compensate for the other’s weaknesses. Dan is adventurous, outgoing, and incorrigible, while Allison is kind, reserved, and anxious. So striking is the difference between them that they’ve nicknamed each other Lion and Lamb.
Both Daniel and Allison came from broken homes and were determined to avoid the same fate in their own relationship.
They meant from the start to create a life-long marriage centered on their Catholic faith and anchored against any challenges the world might throw at them. The first phase of their engagement, however, turned out to be a sore test of this resolution
Dan had been running a small business for about a year, and enjoying his work, but found that he simply was not attracting enough customers to keep it running and had to shut it down. To try to get past this setback as soon as possible, he went off to a trade school in Colorado, which entailed a three-month separation for the young couple just after they were engaged. To make matters worse, when he returned and started working in the new field, he found it wasn’t a good fit for him after all, meaning he had to go back to school yet again.
Meanwhile, Allison was having her own problems. In the first place, many of her friends and family didn’t like Dan very much and didn’t approve of her engagement with him. At the same time, she encountered her own career setback as she was rejected for veterinary school, leaving both of them uncertain, as they prepared for their life together, of how they would even make a living.
Fortunately, they did find support in family, prayer, and most of all, through their shared faith.
PC: Johnson Photography
Fortunately, there were sources of comfort. Though many of Allison’s close acquaintances disapproved of her relationship with Dan, her father and stepmother were whole-hearted supporters.
Allison, who had previously not had a good relationship with her father, now found herself relying on him for support and advice regarding her engagement, through which her relationship with her father deepened and improved. Prayer and mutual support between the lion and the lamb was also a great help.
For despite their trials and setbacks, Allison and Dan remained committed to their relationship and determined to see things through to the end.
Their resolution to build a strong Catholic marriage based on shared values and faith carried them through the challenges of their early engagement.
Looking back on it, they find they appreciate the intense struggles they have experienced, considering it as God breaking down the foundations of their old, separate lives to build a new life for the pair of them as a couple.
They will be married on April 6th, 2019, and consider their relationship stronger than ever.
Dan is working in a new field that he enjoys, while Allison has turned her love of animals to working on a chicken farm. Through hardship and doubt, trial and tribulation, the Lion and the Lamb have found how to support and compensate for one another, to “fill in each other’s gaps” as they put it.
Having overcome all the difficulties life has yet thrown at them, they find that as they approach marriage they are grateful for the struggles they have faced, as adversity has made them and their relationship all the stronger.
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