A brief background on my husband and I. We had met through friends but I was dating his best friend and he was dating a friend of mine. We ended up breaking up with those people and suddenly we found ourselves seriously drawn to each other. We couldn’t believe it, and resisted it for a short period of time, but in the end couldn’t resist the attraction. Our relationship deepened and a year later we were married. We made an Engaged Encounter weekend retreat as prep for our marriage and we had to journal about ourselves and then give our journals to each other. In mine, I told him about always feeling that God had a plan for my life, a destiny to fulfill and was he prepared to be by my side no matter what that plan might be. He had told me yes but now 11 years and two kids later I don’t think he was so sure.
As the weeks passed and God kept drawing me into more prayer time, becoming involved in ministry in our parish and trying to learn everything I could about what was happening to me, my husband and my relationship became more and more strained. I began praying every night telling Jesus that if he wanted me he had to get my husband because if he didn’t I felt we would end up in divorced and I didn’t think he liked divorce. Then we had the worse fight of our marriage. He left for a couple of days and I just kept praying that if Jesus wanted me he had to get my husband. Well, he came back home but was not convinced this was God and suspected that it was another man. I assured him that was not the case and kept praying.
Just about when I was baptized in the Spirit my husband and I had the worse fight of our marriage. He didn’t believe this was God but rather another man. He left for a few days and again I earnestly prayed that if Jesus wanted me he had to get my husband. He came back but was still not sure he believed that all of this was God. The Charismatic group I had been going to was having a retreat for men and women and I asked my husband if he wanted to go. He told me no. Well, God had other plans in store.
One of my son’s teachers held a weekly children’s rosary group at the school and we had started attending it. The principal and his wife attended and we became friends. The teacher who held the children’s rosary also belonged to an adult rosary group and she invited the four of us to attend. When we were there, some of the memebers began talking about the retreat I had asked my husband to go on and he had told me no very emphatically. They had forms for the retreat and asked the four of us if we were interested. The principle’s wife had also wanted to go on it but her husband was also hesitant. She turned to him and said, “Will you go?” He turned to my husband and asked if he was going. My husband said he didn’t know and the principle said, “If you don’t go I’ll raise your tuition!” My husband said yes and we signed up. God was moving!
When we got to the retreat the first night my husband would not sit anywhere except in the last row of the auditorium. That ended up being still to close for him and he went and stood against the back wall. Well, the priest started a Eucharistic procession holding the monstrance with the Eucharist through the auditorium and ended up standing in front of my husband and prayed for him. I truly felt God was going to do something but I wasn’t prepared for what came next.
The next day there was a Life in Spirit seminar and both of the guys took it much to our surprise. That night we were once again sitting in the back when the leaders called everyone who had made the seminar up to the front to be prayed with. Surprisingly the guys went up and I began praying. I told Jesus ‘ok, you got him here now do something with him!’ Suddenlly the principle’s wife grabbed my arm and said my husband had just gone down, that is, was slain in the spirit.
I had never seen this before except on tv, wasn’t really sure it was real, and definitely didn’t think it would happen to my husband! I began to make my way to the front because I couldn’t see him. By the time I got up there he had stood up but was wobbly like he was drunk. The leaders began praying with him and down he went again. I went to his side and when he stood up he was a changed man. He began going to daily mass, we prayed together with the kids at night and going to the weekly prayer meeting. Our marriage and our relationship was so much better. Goes to show you, nothing is impossible for God.
