I write this as my friend and brother-in-law lies in the hospital with COVID and pneumonia, not knowing if he will survive but hoping nonetheless.
We met in the spring of 2007. I don’t know what made me go into the MySpace chat rooms that day. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Who knows? But I hadn’t visited a chat room since the late 90s and I haven’t visited one since.
I joined the Catholicism chat room, and the two of us quickly got into a private discussion on Church teaching. I don’t remember the exact details, only that I thought of him as a lapsed Catholic who didn’t understand the importance of accepting all the Church’s teachings.
Headstrong arrogance
In my headstrong arrogance, I said something like “It’s either all true or there’s no reason to believe any of it.”
That was when he started typing in all caps. He said I was destroying his faith.
I shut up and started praying. Between my prayers, I apologized and listened. Gradually, he started telling me his story, how he had fallen away from the faith, become an MP in the military, and had nearly died overseas.
Coming so close to death, he eventually woke up in a hospital bed in Germany. Dangling from his IV bag was a simple Rosary, reminding him of his childhood faith. Because he’d listed himself as Catholic on his military forms, he’d been given the last rites.
After all this, he had only recently finally found the courage to come back to Mass. He was on the journey back home, and here I was telling him where he was in his journey wasn’t good enough.
I didn’t have profound words to give him, but by the end of the conversation, I was guiding him through the Divine Mercy Chaplet over the phone.
I didn’t think I’d hear from him again ever again, but I felt a profound passion to continue to pray for him. Though I didn’t expect myself to follow through with the commitment, I decided I’d pray for him throughout the rest of my life. I prayed for God to help remind me.
Well, maybe a week or two later, he called me again. All he had was one question about the faith. I gave him the answer. He got angry and hung up. Then a few days later, he called up again with another question.
This pattern continued on for months, with conversations (and arguments) getting longer. I remember at one point asking why he kept calling.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You make me so angry.”
Argumentative friendship
But then later he started insisting I was his God-given spiritual director. I told him I wasn’t remotely qualified or trained to give spiritual direction, but our strange argumentative friendship continued.
In October of 2007, he flew out to meet me. The trip was only three days. During that time, we took a drive out to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse with my sister. The following month, I met my husband, and eventually he asked how I’d feel if he dated my sister. I gave him my blessing.
It seemed like divine providence when the four of us were all engaged around the same time and married within two months of each other.
Years have passed though, and things have not remained as picture perfect. Without going into detail, there are times where it feels like God’s hand is so clear and then things happen and you’re not sure what you believe anymore.
I only know two things.
The first is that a man I committed to praying for 14 years ago is in need of prayers, and I have this medium to ask others to pray for him here. I won’t give out his real name, but ironically when I met him, his chat nickname was “ThatOneGuy.”
The second is to urge you, readers, never to lose hope for those you care about, never to become so legalistically headstrong in your faith that it leads you to judgement and despair for others.
Remember, God loves that person in your life more than you do. And like in the story of the Prodigal son, the Father runs out to the son while the he is “still a long way off” and embraces him.