So who am I and why am I here blogging? That is a fair question so let me give you the quick answer then the longer more interesting one.

I am a married catholic guy (hello captain obvious). I got married to my lovely wife in 1991, have seven amazing kids that live with us here and four who are intercessors praying for us in Heaven. Can’t wait to see you guys!

We had a broken marriage. Broken beyond repair or so we thought and others judged. But we found a way to repair it. My goal is to provide resources to other Catholic guys, or any guys of faith really that are out there who may be searching for answers. To share some of the tools and ideas which have helped us completely rebuild a loveless and shell of a marriage.

Married Young

We were married young (22 and 19) and we had a great marriage until we really started falling apart. As I fell away from God and the Church, our marriage started doing the same.

I moved out, I filed for divorce, but never went through with it. Then a few years later I would fill out all the paperwork to file for divorce again, this time, I meant it.

That is when we found Retrouvaille and when I rediscovered, there was a God and he loved me.

So that is the short version of the story. The key to our survival as a couple was me rediscovering there was a God. I actually reached the point where I did not believe there was a God. If there was a God, how could he allow my wife and I to hurt each other so bad like we were doing?

Our marriage was over. If you took our story and posted it in an online poll and asked if these two should remain married, or get divorced? I am fairly certain that the overwhelming majority of people would have said it was time to end it. Society teaches us that if we don’t love each other and we are hurting each other emotionally over and over, then it is easier to just go our own ways. What society does not teach us is that our marriage was a sacrament, it was meant to be forever and when God brings two people together, no one is supposed to come in between and separate them. They are one.

But to believe that, you need to believe that there is a God. I had reached the point where I went to church occasionally on Sunday’s with my wife and kids. But I was just going through the motions. I was not there. I was thinking about what I would do when I got home or how boring this was.

Then, things hit their absolute bottom.

Jess and I were on the verge of divorce again. I did not believe in God. I had moved out again and for a while was mostly living in my car.

Jess asked me to go to Retrouvaille. This was a Catholic ministry that tried to save broken marriages. Their unofficial motto is when you are ready for divorce, let us be your last resort. I agreed to go. Not to really save our marriage, but I judged if I went, then I could always tell the kids, hey we tried everything. While Retrouvaille did not instantly heal our marriage, it put a little crack in the wall that we had built between us and allowed us to start communicating for the first time in probably a decade.

But this probably wouldn’t have happened if a small miracle had not set the wheels in motion just before the weekend. I had was still struggling with the God thing.  I was still trying to work through that part, and if there was really a God. I wanted some clarification with that before our Retrouvaille weekend.

Testing God

Just typing that it sounds so absurd now. Testing God? Who does that? Well this guy, or so I thought. There was a small enough part of me that either believed there may be a God or maybe it was just enough of my Catholic guilt keeping me around. But I had a plan. I was going to give him a chance to prove to me he was real. If he was real, and if he really wanted me to believe in him, he had a chance to show me.

So I made a deal. “God I am going to go to daily mass for one week. You have one week to prove to me you are real.”

Monday: I walked into church ready to either be blown away or give up on God forever. I thought, God I am here. Show me you are real. You know something small like make a statue cry, make a host bleed, anything like that. I bet you will be shocked to hear that none of that happened. All that happened is the priest talked about some Polish Nun named Faustina who wrote a diary. Great, a nun. But where is my miracle?

Tuesday: I walk into the church with the same expectations. I wish I could go back and just smack myself up the head now. Yea, like God, was going to make a statue cry or something. Again I did not get my sign and again the same priest was talking about mercy and how that saint’s Diary talked about God’s mercy for us. OK God, 2 days down, you are running out of time, guessing this is a waste of time.

Wednesday: Cliff Notes: Expect Miracle. No Miracle. Priest mentions Diary during homily again, but this time, he waves the book in the air and says go buy it in our bookstore.

Ok, so I may be a little slow at times.  But maybe, just maybe this was my sign? I had to at least check it out. So I went to the bookstore and laid down the few dollars it cost for St Faustina’s Diary.

I started reading it almost immediately. If you have read the Diary, you know it is not light reading. Every page I got pulled into the story more and more. The messages from Jesus to Faustina were so powerful. The mercy he wanted to pour out for us, there are not words to describe it. The miracles and vision he works can only be the act of a loving parent.

The more I read the more I realized I was a complete idiot. I could not believe that I did not believe in God. It became obvious to me that God was real and God loved me greatly. God wanted to not only forgive me, but he wanted me to forgive myself.

While this did not fix the issues with my wife and I, it did start opening my eyes and heart to the chance to fix things.

The wow moment

Yea, yea yea, so you read some book by some Saint and that made you believe in God again. Big deal right?

Well kind of, if that is where the story ended. Over the next year, I would develop a close relationship with Saint Faustina. I would tell my wife about her. I would get a Divine Mercy picture for our house. I would start asking her to pray for me and our marriage and I actually felt like she was doing that.

Over the next year as I felt her more in my life it lead me closer to God, and closer to Jessica. We really started to allow God to heal our marriage.

So let me start to wrap this up. Some little known Saint, who I had never heard of before, I now felt was one of the main reasons, along with Retrouvaille, that our marriage was growing stronger and stronger.

Ready for it?

This is where I break down every time I tell this story out loud. So on our anniversary, one year after our Retrouvaille weekend, I am driving into my office. I was listening to Catholic radio and there going through the readings of the day and the Saints of the day. Guess who’s feast just happens to be our anniversary saint. Yup Faustina. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped and cried like a baby. It all came full circle. So this unknown to me Saint, who I had been asking her to pray for our marriage, who I felt helped bring me back to the church and back to my family, who I would have never heard of if I did not go to God asking for a sign, just happens to be the patron saint of our wedding anniversary date.

Yeaaaaaa, and I didn’t believe there was a God. What a schmuck!

You can call that a coincidence, but wow, that would have to be one of the greatest coincidences of all time.

Today, we present weekends and posts workshops for Retrouvaille here in Phoenix. And when a Catholic comes to me about marriage problems, I always recommend the first thing they do find out the patron saint of their wedding day and start asking them for prayers too. Then attend a Retrouvaille weekend.