My story (part III)

Hello There again,

Let's see how much of this I will be able to write right now. Everyone's occupied. . . for the moment. I have do a number of things to get done this week but my heart tugs at me to keep working on this. Why? Some of you might find it superfluous. I do this because some of my loved ones find this conversion troubling and painful. It just doesn't make sense. Dumbfounding. How you can honestly believe everything the Catholic Church believes?  It makes no sense. I feel the burden to share my heart because I want to help heal division. I want to ease any pain if possible. It feels impossible but if there is any way I can help with even a tiny bit of healing, I want to try. This division goes back several hundred years, I know I won't fix it but I want to attempt to do my little part.

Alrighty . . . the story of my heart continues. . . .

Doug and I got married. In a good, solid, Bible-believing church in Minnesota. We were spending most of our time doing church outreach with refugees. We were learning how to be married. Now, maybe some of you might remember that once I did a blog post about NFP (natural family planning). You could probably find it here if you looked a bit. It was one of our "aha" moments when we both found out that we both were not comfortable with artificial birth control. We had no idea how to go about it naturally. So we went to Barnes and Noble and stumbled upon the title "Natural Family Planning." The title was perfect. We thumbed through it. I noticed all the charts and scientific explanations. Just what I needed. Doug noticed the history and theology of it. He was happy. So we bought the book and started studying. I learned (along with another book), what I needed to know. Doug was fascinated with the other reading.

If Doug were to write a guest blog post (and I'd love him to if anyone here would enjoy it), I think he would say that much of his interest in the Catholic Church started with this book. (I just deleted a paragraph about what Doug saw in that book because it is fascinating on its own. But I will try to stick with my subject here. It's tough because so much is connected. I, and I think we all could, write a book on various portions of our lives.) 

Anyhow, that book really got him to thinking, so he read more.  He read another book and another and another. At some point I think he said, "Oh my, I think I stand more on the Catholic position on this."  I didn't go there with him. I was freaked out. I was thinking "What in heaven's name are you reading." It bothered me. There he goes reading about justification AGAIN. What is going on here?  But I tried not to let it bother me and went on with other things.

After a while, Doug started coming to a place where he thought he would probably become Catholic (again sorry, I'm for lengths sake I really have to condense this. so the accuracy and timing might be a little off. you can call Doug and ask his side :).  Well, that brought the abrupt end to our church ministry. They wanted nothing to do with Catholicism. I won't go into that in detail but that was very painful for me in a number of ways. I felt rudely abandoned by people who called themselves Christian. Fortunately I have known from the beginning that is isn't Christ himself who hurts others. It is people. We are sinful, ugly, and mean. Right, aren't we? Many, many people have hurt others in the name of Christ. Unfortunately it has turned many people away from God and from his church. Like I said, fortunately, from a young age I understood that there will always be hurt and even scandal because men are sinful. I wasn't tempted to turn from God because I knew the hurt is due to men's  own shortcomings.

It did hurt though. These years of Doug's conversion were very painful. I'm not sure how much to go into detail here. ( I would love to be available for anyone going through something similar because I know it is uncommon to find resources for people in such a place.) Some of the hurt came from others. The hurt didn't usually come in the form of words. Doug did receive hurtful words from a few friends. Our relationship with our ministry was abruptly severed. What was most hurtful for me was the deafening silence. Here I was as a young newlywed suffering through something I couldn't even begin to understand. I had no idea what to do or think. I would have loved to have prayed with an older woman. To receive a hug in the midst of the confusion. But nothing. No one wanted to talk about it. Well, I can't so "no one."  I did have a special little prayer group with some girls who didn't condemn me or my husband. They listened. I think they just had no idea what to say. And I do have to say that once a couple we did most of our ministry alongside invited us over to their house, sat us down, and tried to approach the issue. I think they didn't really know what to say either but it was something. In the middle of the hurtful silence it was something to hold on to. It is the most painful thing to be in the middle of hurt and to be alone. May I be that for others, right??!!  May I approach the difficult issue, acknowledge that I don't understand, but at least say "I love you. I care."

The hurt came from within our marriage as well. Like I said, I was simply confused and bewildered. What was I do with this? I've never even HEARD of something like this before. One minute I would be angry and thinking "Why would you do this to me? You should have told me BEFORE we got married! We were perfectly happy at our church, in our ministry. Life was good! Now what?" But I couldn't stay angry for long. Deep down I knew this man. His is a good heart. A heart of gold. He wouldn't hurt me for the world. I knew that he had insatiable thirst for truth; the whole reason why I wanted to marry him.  So now the very virtue that I saw in this man was the very thing tearing us apart. He saw the Catholic Church as true. I did not. For a Christian couple who tries their best to follow Jesus, this division is real. It cuts to the heart.

There were a few painful moments when I would scream aloud in my mind I CANNOT DO THIS!!!! I would take the car and go on a long, tear-filled drive. I didn't want to go back home. But when my emotions settled down a bit and I could rationalize, I knew leaving my marriage was not an option. There HAD to be a way through this.  An older friend once told me something along the lines of "A marriage can thrive even with significant difficulties."  Wow! I thought about that. It can thrive??  I knew this struggle for us would be for the long haul. I would not quit on our marriage. I loved Doug. I wouldn't give up on him. On us. So I concentrated on living it. We CAN thrive.  We WILL love and live and be happy. And we did.

Yes, it was difficult. We did our best to navigate things. We went to two churches for years. I went to Doug's confirmation and first Eucharist. I cried when we met the priest. Fortunately the priest was gentle. He understood my sadness. He was a convert himself.  An Indian man who came from a Hindu background. He knew the pain it had caused his parents. So he understood my tears and said so.

Oh, one other piece. How was I to move ahead spiritually? Doug didn't understand why I didn't even investigate the Catholic Church. He was hurting too but I didn't have eyes to see that. Only now can I begin to understand his hurt. I knew I couldn't even consider the Catholic Church. It was not on my radar. I never would have even given it a second thought if it weren't for Doug. For years to come my mantra would be along these lines "Just concentrate on Jesus. Read your Bible and pray. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Sit at his feet".  That's it. One small thing. Day after day. My mind and emotions just couldn't go there, where Doug was. I couldn't. I can't describe it. It's like my mind and my emotions were filled to bursting. If I even tried to think of Doug's conversion, the Catholic Church, and how this is going to work in our family, I would burst. The seams would rip and I would fall apart. For the time being, I just kept one foot in front of the other. Walking slowly, holding Jesus's hand. And my husband's. Loving him. That was all I could do.  

And in the meantime we had job upheaval, premature twin babies, and moves across the country. Life was full and HARD.  But we all have seasons like that, right? It waxes and wanes. Rises and falls. We've got to keep steady. Keep our eyes on the goal and never lose hope. "Hope dies last," a Russian told me once.

To be continued. . . soon. . .

Part I here

Part II here