H
HoneyBea
Guest
I am a cradle Catholic. I’ve always had deep love & respect for the church but I never understood any of its teaching. So, college happened & basically I was convinced I didn’t need an “institution between me and God”. Somewhere along the road I heard someone say that and it sounded good. In my 20s I experimented with drugs & by the grace of God I never got into heavy use, I was extremely sexually promiscuous & I actually enjoyed being used by men. I also drank too much my life revolved around the next party. Then I met my husband he was the complete opposite of everything & everyone I had ever known. He is a very simple man, country kind of boy & Air force. He lived a very simple life. He did not come from money. He was very responsible, and he did not sleep around or party. I spent the night with him the first night I met him, and yes, I slept with him of course. I threw myself all over him, I dont blame him for not resisting and basically I just never left. Literally, I never left his house. I never went back to my apartment. Now its 8 yrs later & we have been married over 5 years. My relationship with my husband changed me completely & he became my entire world, I was head over heels in love with him, but I had foolishly thought my husband could heal my hurt and fill my voids. Things quickly got ugly after the honeymoon was over & I was forced to turn back to God. It has been a slow learning process & I am still in the mist of it as our marriage is not at all healed, but what has come out of all of us this is my amazing rediscovery of God who I am now head over heels in love with. We were married in the church and went though Cana so he was familiar with the Church teachings but he was not Catholic. We separated for a while & during this time he started RCIA, which was a complete shock to me & it was my first awakening of God “checking me” It was then I realized I had to back off & let God do his work & that I was standing in the way.I eventually came back home & we had a beautiful day celebrating Easter &my husbands confirmation with friends & family. I thought everything was great & things were different, but little did I know it was just the beginning & I would be called & challenged to do more. While my husband was doing RCIA he would share what he was learning & I was shocked at how little I knew about my own faith. I felt silly & a little jealous that he knew more & I had been a Catholic all my life! This drove me to my own studies & for the past year I have been studying the Church teachings, the mass, everything I can get my hands on. I have this huge thirst for more & it grows & as does my love for God & our relationship which has strengthened in a way I could never imagine. Today my marriage is still pretty much miserable. I know I am being called to witness to my husband- to bring him to Christ, but it is so hard because hes such a jerk! I know I am going to have to humble myself in a way that Ive never done before & its going to take some serious fortitude but I am struggling. I want God to work in me, but my emotions take over all the hurt my husband has caused me comes flooding back in the moment he creates a new wound that I become crippled by my sea of pain and agony. I know God can heal me & I can overcome this, but this is where I am right now. I have been praying for the past 3-4 months for God to use me as his vessel to witness & for complete submission to do Gods will. We recently moved & I have made 2 very close friends who ironically are both ex Catholics. One is an angry ex Catholic who had an abusive father who was a strict Catholic & she cant seem to separate the church from the abuse she suffered. The other is just a Catholic who stopped attending church & following her faith. She expressed a huge desire to come back home to the church. Both girls have told me they feel God has put me in their lives. Anyways, Leah Dunham, does speeches over being modest & chasity & I thought oh that would be so cool if we could get her to speak at our church! So, 2 months ago I was sitting in the church parishioners office to inquire if they would be interested in Leah coming to visit our church & she told me there was no youth program. She asked me why dont I do it. I thought she was crazy. She told me there is plenty of money & I could create the program myself. At that time Father walked in & she blurted to him “She is thinking about taking over the non existent youth program” & I quickly retorted " Ya, but I’m not qualified, I have no idea what I’m doing and I dont know scripture well enough I have so much to learn myself I cant possibly lead others right now" Then I made the mistake of saying “But I have been praying relentless for God to use me to witness to others”. Father replied “well there you go, you know what you are being called to do, come see when you are ready” To be honest they scared me & I told her I needed to pray so I left & went home. I got an email from her a few weeks ago asking if I had made a decision and I said I had not and to please pray for me. Yesterday, my friend Susan had reached out to me again asking to go to Mass. I told her about how I was struggling with this youth director issue & she immediately got excited and told me she would help me do it! I feel completely backed into a corner, like I can no longer ignore God at this point. I have no idea how to do this or where to begin. I feel incompetent. I feel like I have my own issues & problems that I am in no position to lead youth. I only recently came back to my faith and still have so much to learn. I wonder if we will be the blind leading the blind together lol. Anyways, I am asking at this time for many prayers and suggestions, resources, advice, motivation, anything because I am scared.
That’s the way it goes sometimes. As they say, God doesn’t choose the qualified, He qualifies the chosen. 