The Most Broken Of Roads
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If God has blessed any broken road, it has been ours. Between us, we have suffered through divorce and annulment, a broken engagement and the death of a spouse. The everyday struggles of life as single parents to our combined ten children have not made our roads any easier. But through all of our struggles, we had faith in God and hope in His loving plan for us.
ANN'S STORY
About
six months after my husband died, I suffered an extreme bout of
loneliness when I realized that every one of my friends and family were
married. I did not have one contact in my life that was single. Here
I was, a single, homeschooling mother of six trying to raise my kids
Catholic and I felt like there was no one who could truly understand my
life. When I expressed this to a friend of mine, she suggested I find some online support. She told me that she had heard about Catholic Match and that could be a good place to start.
When
I joined Catholic Match, my only desire was to find some like minded
Catholics in similar situations with whom I could connect. I
found great support in the Widows/Widowers room and the St. Ann's Room. I
also enjoyed the forums where there was not only good hearted bantering
and totally inane conversation, but true defense of Holy Mother Church
and Her teachings. This is what kept me coming back. One of those nights, while reading the forums, I ended up nearly spilling my drink on my keyboard over a comment this guy made. As I was laughing, I decided to emote him to say thanks for the laugh. Little did I know that just nine short months later, I would become his wife.
After Doug received my emote, we began chatting with little intention of a relationship. We chatted and emailed and started to talk on the phone. There were many nights that our conversations would last for hours as we began to see how much we had in common. Our backgrounds, parenting and desires for our families were very similar. This was very attractive to me.
When
one is not communicating face to face with someone, it’s easy to let
things get carried away in a manner that is not showing care for the
other’s soul. This
was the first time in my life that I was really tested to keep my words
and actions in such a pure way as to not lead a man I cared for into
sin. It is much easier to talk the talk, than to walk the walk. With
a man who was helping to be the gatekeeper, though, it became easier
and I felt loved and respected in a way that I had never experienced. Trying
to live our faith in this area really gave us an understanding of why
the Catholic Church teaches what she does about purity. Our obedience to Her wisdom has become an amazing blessing in our lives.
We
approached our relationship with a desire to see if God had called us
to be in a married vocation with each other. We began a 54-day rosary
novena with this as our intention. Approximately six weeks after we began talking on the phone, we met for our first face to face. We
found that everything we were feeling was just enhanced and affirmed
when we were able to look into each other eyes and touch each other. Our trip to a botanical garden was the first time we were able to pray our rosary sitting next to each other. It was a wonderful experience.
OK, so now we feel that just possibly, God was calling us to pursue this relationship. Another intention of our rosary novena was that if this was truly His will, He was going to have to make it happen. Doug was in California and I lived in Kentucky. A week or so into the novena, a job transfer was in store for Doug. His job was transferred to a city 35 miles from where I lived. Two weeks into the novena and his ex-wife signed the needed documents so that he could move with the kids. It was hard to deny God’s hand in our relationship after that. Six
weeks after our first face to face, Doug and his four children moved to
Kentucky and a new dimension was added to our relationship.
DOUG'S STORY
I had originally joined CM for much of the same reasons as Anne. I wanted to communicate with like-minded folks, as there were not many in my area. Here
I found a lot of fellow Catholics with whom I could converse and who
didn’t think I was “weird” for going back to my roots and what I had
learned of the Church in my youth. I had been off and on the site for a couple of years. I explored relationships during that time, both romantic and friendships.
When I met Anne, it all just seemed so natural. We became fast friends. I wasn’t sure what would come of it though, because, at the time, she was considering moving to Ohio to be closer to her family. I
knew there was a possibility that I might have an opportunity to
transfer to Kentucky with my company and trusted that if we were to be,
God would provide a way…and He did. The house she was trying to buy went off the market and an offer of a job here came through for me.
At this point, we had not even met yet. Our first meeting was at a neutral site. We met in Texas where I had a cousin living and she had a friend. Our attraction to one another only flourished with the realization of the expectations we each held. She was as fantastic as I had imagined and maybe even a bit better than was expected ;~}.
It has now been one year since Anne and I consecrated our union before God and our friends and family. Our lives have changed so much for the better, for all of us. I have been blessed with the most loyal and loving wife I could ever have hoped for. She is all a Catholic wife should be. I definitely owe our coming together to God via Catholic Match. It
may have been possible, though improbable, that we would have met
anyway, since I most likely would have ended up here in Kentucky with
my job. CM,
however, allowed us to “meet” all that much sooner and to get to know
one another on a level that is unique and not able to be attained in
real-life meetings.
God
truly works in mysterious ways and he has blessed me immensely with a
beautiful and devoted wife with whom I can grow in my faith and spend
the rest of my life appreciating her and serving Him as thanks for the
marvelous gift he has bestowed upon me.