My health issues made moving quite a challenge. Fatigue limited what I was able to do, yet I was the only one who could do anything—everything. I had learned over the years, everything was up to me, myself and I. Even in my marriage. Having married someone disabled, everything was up to me. With his volatile physical condition, the importance of remembering to pack everything had no small consequences.
Traveling by myself did not have similar less life-and-death concerns, yet I didn’t want to get into a situation where I might need something that I had given away. On the other hand, my small SUV was only so big.
My first destination would be Wisconsin where there were three Marian Shrines. And I definitely needed prayer and a time of discernment. My marriage had been bad, but after my divorce and annulment, no matter which plow I set my hand to, it seemed to be the wrong one.
Having taken care of my entrepreneurial husband who was disabled throughout our 20-year **marriage, I didn’t work outside the home. I was responsible for everything physical; from his care, to the housework, to administrative duties regarding his business, to hosting traveling business associates. However, never having done any of these things in any kind of officially paid capacity, nobody was interested in hiring me.
Now, three years after my separation, the Lord has seen fit to make it abundantly clear I was to do what He told me to do some more than a year before. A story for another time, Luke 10 and Matthew 10 had been my answer when I asked the Lord for direction about what I should do with my life.
The answer was a shock. A definite introvert and a revert to my Catholic roots, not only did I not want, nor was I prepared to evangelize. In addition, I was having trouble getting my own life to work, who was I to tell anyone Jesus was the answer when my own life was about as out of order as anything anyone else might be struggling with. Nevertheless, I couldn’t see any alternatives.
It took everything I had to get out of the house by the end of the day I had told my landlord I would be out. I finally hit the road after I went to Sunday vigil Mass on Saturday evening.
Within the hour, however, my energy waned and I pulled over at a rest stop. I laid down on my “bed” in the back of my car and slept for about an hour. When I woke, it was after 7:00 and I was getting hungry.
I looked around the parking lot. Cars and people came and went. A man stood against his Jeep smoking a cigarette.
I decided it was Go Time. I had to act as if this were normal for me. Nobody knew anything about me. What did I have to prove to anyone?
I got out of my car and went to the back-passenger side door to get my tiny gas cooker, small pan and utensils. As I took my stuff to the nearest picnic table, I saw the cigarette-smoking man walk from his Jeep to bench on the other side of the parking lot.
Bringing a load of food from my cooler to the picnic table, I chopped a tomato and cucumber and tossed them with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
As I began to heat up my left over one-skillet meal the man walked back toward his Jeep. I called to him asking if he were hungry.
“Always.” He answered.
He came over, introduced himself, and we chatted while the hamburger meat, onions, bell peppers and zucchini heated up.
I’m not sure how we got on the subject of religion, but he told me that he was raise Catholic and even when to several years of Catholic school. The way he spoke about faith, even from his youth he was a skeptic. His teachers, the nuns, never answered to his satisfaction, his questions about how God managed to do this miracle or that miracle. So for his entire life, he remained a skeptic. In addition, young people in his life he had loved had suffered and died. What a cruel God to make children suffer. Mike had become jaded.
We continued to talk but nothing I said, the truth of Who God is, and why life is the way it is, were answers that he knew but weren’t good enough to satisfy him. We finished eating but continued to talk for a long time before I realized he seemed not to want to believe. He remained unmoved by any kind of logic or defense I offered.
Now well after dark, I cleaned up my dishes and excused myself.
Having washed my dishes and gotten ready for bed, I walked from the bathroom to my car, walking past him sitting at a picnic table. Mike struck up the conversation again. So, I sat. Before long, however, he was reiterating his previous arguments, so I excused myself again. He asked me to stay but I went to bed.
I lay there asking the Lord what I should have done but had no real clarity.
The next morning, I woke thinking about the whole thing. I recalled how he had complained that he said that the nuns only answered his ‘why’ questions with “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
About a year before, I had printed some content from Fr. Spitzer’s website, CredibleCatholic.com which, even with the best of intentions, I never took the time to read. This road trip would be my opportunity. Or not.
I got cleaned up and when I headed back to my car from the bathroom, he was leaving the men’s room. I called for him to come over. Putting my things in my car, I pulled out the papers from Fr. Spitzer. I explained to him that this may be the answers to his questions about God.
I related a story Fr. Spitzer had told. When he was young, he peppered his mother with questions about God. She told him, “Just hold this baby and you’ll understand.” So, he held the baby. “Nope, Ma, I’m not getting it.”
He explained that some people come to faith by intuition, sensing God, feeling God. It is the foundation on which intellectual understanding is built. Other people understand God by their intellect, more of a fact based, scientific/metaphysical approach on which the intuition/sensing life of faith can be built. Obviously, I leaned more strongly in the sensing/feeling direction. He leaned the other.
He thanked me and promised he would read it.
I got in my car and drove away, hoping, praying, believing that the Lord would have His way in Mike’s life despite my efforts, such that they were.
