Our message

It shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you that I've been pretty down lately. It's been a difficult few weeks for me, let alone a difficult year. I really think this has been the roughest year of my life to date, and the same goes for Ryan.

Just the other day, my husband, who was once the most optimistic person I'd ever met, told me he now expects bad things to happen. That's sad. I mean, that's how I've felt for years, but I don't want to see someone join the despair club. And he has. He's sad. A shell of his former hopeful self.

As for me, I've had a lot of shocking things come out of my mouth lately. My attitude had changed. I've said for years now that I'm exhausted by infertility, but only recently had the fatigue became truly apparent. I had crossed a line. I was too tired to try anymore. Too tired to pray, to beg God for the millionth time to grow my family.

And, after a couple weeks of not praying, I realized the guilt was gone. I didn't feel a twinge of regret when I passed my prayer room. The hour of three o'clock came and went without me offering any prayers for the souls in Purgatory and I didn't feel bad. A daily Rosary was no longer even on my radar.

When I realized I didn't feel a pull towards prayer anymore, I knew something was changing. It was as if the ropes were breaking and apathy was setting in. And I didn't care.

I was convinced of something - that God didn't love me. Not one tiny bit. Yes, He may love all of you, but not me. That was clear. I had, just like with everything else in my life, been passed over.

Let's see, what else did I say? I believe I actually said that God was crapping on me. That He had abandoned me. That it felt like He was beating me to a pulp. I even said that perhaps the fact that I come from a good family with loving parents made it difficult for me to relate to God, a parental figure who seeks to hurt you. I said I had lost the will to live a normal life, and beyond waking and sleeping each day, I was giving up on everything else.

I also swore (something I don't ever do) with reckless abandon and it felt good.

Obviously, I was hurting. I had clung to God for so many years and felt as if it was getting me nowhere. I resented the stories others told about surrendering and finding peace. I had turned all of this over to God a year ago and since that time wanted nothing other than for His will to be done. Still, I struggled with heartbreak on a daily basis. It was becoming difficult to function.

So, the other night, I told Ryan that my faith was slipping away. He knew it. He could see it happening and said it was his worst nightmare coming true. That would mean the end for me. My faith was all I had.

I woke the next morning for our weekly hour of adoration and started to get ready but felt as if I couldn't even muster up the energy to brush my hair. I had nothing in me. I sat on the couch, half-ready, and announced I wouldn't be going. But, surprisingly, for the first time in weeks I actually felt bad about it. I felt the urge to get ready and go, despite the fact that I didn't want to and physically didn't think I had the energy.

I went. The whole ride there I complained. God didn't love me. Not one tiny bit. He had abandoned me; I was convinced of it. I believed in Him still, and I even loved Him, but I resented Him. My new image of Him, which I believed was a result of my personal experience these last five years, was not what Christianity portrays. As usual, I had been left out of all of that.

We arrived at the chapel and Ryan went in ahead of me. After a few minutes, I walked in, knelt, said the fastest prayer ever with no feeling and then sat in a seat up front. Ryan was directly to my right, on the other side of the chapel. There were no chairs between us, just one seat on the left and one on the right with space in between in front of the Eucharist.

I sat and pouted. I stared at the clock. Time was moving so slowly. I thought about my life, my mind wandered, but I didn't pray.

About thirty-five minutes into our hour, an older woman came in and knelt in the back. I glanced at her quickly and saw long, black, braided hair. She made no sound and I had all but forgotten about her when, about five minutes later, she walked into the space between us and quietly asked, in an Indian accent, if we minded if she knelt there. No, I replied. She then said she could see Jesus in the Eucharist. "He's there," she whispered, pointing.

I felt a sense of excitement and watched her intently. I've been going to adoration for years now and had never been in the room with someone who claimed they could see Jesus. I had heard all about it, that's for sure. When I made my documentary, Watch With Me, about Eucharist Adoration, I heard many stories of this. I was always jealous of those who saw Him, and wanted so badly to experience it myself.

It wasn't long before I felt jealous of this woman. Sure, God. Not only do you not offer any comfort to me, but you're going to make me watch as someone else gets to experience you firsthand?

I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I watched as she leaned to one side, almost as if she were going to topple over. I inched forward in my seat, trying to see her eyes and whether they were open. When I wasn't watching her, I was staring at the Eucharist, trying with all my might to see Jesus' face, or whatever it was that she was seeing.

I even prayed that Christ would deliver a message to me through this woman, as silly as it sounded to me at the time. I pictured it happening, her turning to me, telling me something Jesus wanted me to know. For a second the thought thrilled me, but I pushed it out of my mind.

Then, after a few minutes, it happened. She turned to me, asked if I could see Him, to which I replied no. She motioned to me, telling me to come and kneel next to her and then turned to Ryan and said the same thing to him. We did.

She said Jesus wanted her to give a message to us: That He loves us and has not abandoned us.

I was in shock.

What followed over the next ten to fifteen minutes was amazing. I wish I could remember it verbatim, but I cannot. We both wrote down as much as we could remember when we got home, and I will try to convey as much as possible here:

*She told us to pray "Oh my God, I love you. Help me to love you more and more. I ask this in Christ’s name, Amen." She said to pray it over and over in front of the Eucharist.

*She said while she was praying, Jesus asked her to give a message to us.

*She talked mostly about surrendering. When I told her I felt as if I had, and still did not have peace, she said I must be holding something back from Him.

*She told me that Jesus loves me and wants me to know He loves me. She said His love for me is the size of an ocean, even though one drop would be enough to fulfill me. She said "He is smiling when I tell you He loves you."

*She also talked a lot about finding peace, love and happiness. She said if we surrender, then all the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place.

*She told us to make a good confession.

*She said Jesus looked to her like the Divine Mercy image. He was as beautiful as His rays of light. He was smiling.

*She said she usually she sees Christ followed by the Communion of Saints, but this time it was just Him. She said this was because He wanted us to know how much He loves us.

*He also appeared at one point as a beating heart, which she said was to show how much he loves Ryan and me.

*She would tell us when the image changed, and at one point she said, "Look - he is appearing as a young man now!"

*She went through the Our Father line by line, stressing certain parts of the prayer, especially the part about forgiveness.

*I told her that I couldn't have children. She then talked about adoption and how Jesus says all the children in the world are there for us to help.

*She said Jesus wants us to be happy with all that He has given us. Don't focus on what He hasn't.

*She told Ryan, “Jesus is reaching out to me because He knows you need him.”

She was such a calming presence, I could have stayed there all day. At the end of our hour, an older couple entered the chapel, and the woman whispered to us that she could no longer talk out loud and said we could just pray the prayer she had been praying. She did whisper a few things to us after that, but after about five minutes, we both thanked her and left.

I had been crying the entire time, but I was unsure of what Ryan's reaction would be, since I couldn't really tell while it was all happening. As soon as we got to the car, he said it was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to him. I couldn't agree more.

We never did see His face in the Eucharist, no matter how hard we tried, and that's okay. That's why He brought someone there who could.

We don't know who this woman was. We've never seen her before. We don't think she was an angel or anything like that. She was just a real person, wearing a Purdue sweatshirt.

She also wasn't psychic and the message, while clearly intended for us, wasn't always interpreted perfectly (at the beginning Ryan mentioned to her that we were having problems, and she took that to mean marital and spoke for a minute or so about not getting divorced. But I do believe that perhaps Jesus did intent to remind us about the importance of our marriage in the midst of all of this). We tend to believe that she is a faithful woman who perhaps God called to that chapel on that morning to deliver a message to us, two people who desperately needed to hear it.

The woman didn't say that God told her we'd be parents soon. His message focused on something much more important - how much He loves us. I believe God knew that I had hit rock bottom - despite the fact that I have told him that many times before - and that, this time, I was in serious trouble. And he threw me a life line.

I am blown away. I am still in shock and so, so grateful for this experience. And I am humbled. I said some extremely regrettable things, and even spoke terribly of God just minutes before He decided to make Himself known to me in a real way. He is forgiving before we even ask for it.

I am embarrassed that I doubted Him so seriously, but it's a learning process. I am not Mother Theresa. She could go for decades with her faith life as dry as a desert, but I couldn't last a couple months. He knew that.

There is so much for Ryan and me to reflect on. Right now, though, I have to remember the simplicity of Christ's message for us - that He loves us more than we can imagine. He has not abandoned us and never will. That is His message for us all.

Oh my God, I love you. Help me to love you more and more. This I ask in Christ's name, Amen.