The One-Year Anniversary: Thanking God For A Blessed Year

Dear God,

The reason that I’m writing today is to thank you for answering my prayers.  You know, the ones that I started to utter two years ago when I first joined CatholicMatch.

I was so very lonesome when I first began my prayer journey. After being widowed three years, I had cried enough tears to fill an entire ocean and had I bought stock in Kleenex tissues, I would be a millionaire today.

I will admit that for the first year I was on CatholicMatch, I met an awful lot of frogs!  There were many good guys right in my neighborhood, but for one reason or another, they simply weren’t right for me.

If all of those men compared notes, I’m sure the one thing they would all remember was that I always kept my hands in my pockets during a face-to-face. That was so I could beat a hasty retreat without a kiss or so much as a hug.

Needless to say, I continued my prayers to you in earnest, but I began to include the caveat that I would really appreciate it if you sent me a widower who was still raising children. You see, in addition to missing being a wife, I also missed being a mom.

Then one day, about a year after joining CatholicMatch, I received not an emotigram, but a message from a fellow by the name of Mr. Right, the father of several children, who lived not in my own backyard, but in the next state over.

I believe that we each wrote two messages over the course of 24 hours or so.  He gave me his phone number, and I called him.  After a lengthy conversation, we agreed to meet a couple of days later.

We had an unbelievable five-hour face-to-face that ended in me hugging Mr. Right and him planting a kiss on my cheek. I’ll never forget the long drive home because as I drove, Mr. Right called to say two things. First, he was sorry if the kiss was too forward and second, he asked if he could see me again. I do remember that we were both crying as I answered yes, I would love to have another date with him.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of that initial face-to-face meeting with my sweet Mr. Right. We celebrated by seeing a play, having dinner, and chatting about just how far we have come in the last 365 days.

You see, God, since each of us had been widowed there was a lot of healing that needed to happen in our lives. We were afraid of many things. Would another love die on us? Could we trust another love with our children? What would our friends say? What about our mothers-in-law, surely they would have opinions too?

Somehow, through your grace, everything is working out. Occasionally we get a bumpy day and then we talk, talk, and talk some more until we resolve the issue. We learned to walk and now we’re beginning to run.

I must admit, you do know how to not only heal broken hearts, but you know how to make them grow back big enough to allow an additional love to be nourished and grow right there alongside the first.

How awesome is that?

To this day, I can’t believe how you not only answer prayers but have a complete plan, which you unravel slowly but surely every day. You have given us a mysterious puzzle called love and our job is to make all the pieces fit.

The Bible tells us that of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love. I already had faith and hope in my life, and now it appears that love is here to stay.

With much love and adoration,

Barbara Ann

P.S. Happy first anniversary to you, my dear Mr. Right! Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

Editor's note

We publish original reflections by Barb Tess on the first Sunday of every month. Don't miss her next one on Sunday, Dec. 4.