Wk 07*** Taken – For Granted

I was raised in a Catholic family, back in the days when the Sunday worship service, the Mass, was celebrated in Latin. Altar-boys were required to learn Latin to serve on the altar. Only boys could become altar-boys; girls were not allowed. I was a boy, but I could not learn Latin; so as a second-grader at Saint Agnes Catholic Elementary School, I flunked out of the class of altar-boys. I took it for granted I would never be able to serve on the altar.

When I was a teenager, the Catholic Church converted the Latin Mass to English. Eight months after graduating from Cardinal Gibbons (all boys) Catholic High School I received the Divine Call to ministry. I took it for granted that God was calling me into the priesthood, so I entered the Catholic Seminary to become a Catholic priest. I also took it for granted that I would have to take a vow of celibacy, never get married, and never have children.

Living in the seminary was like being on a spiritual retreat for the entire duration of my stay. I prayed constantly, and most of the time I was begging God not to deny me the blessing of having children. God heard my plea, and six weeks after I entered the seminary, for reasons I cannot divulge, God clearly told me to leave. Two years later I met a Lutheran girl, and two years after we met, we were married in her Lutheran Church.

The Missouri Synod Lutheran Church adheared to doctrine almost identical to the Roman Catholic Church, except for canonizing saints and a few other details. I took for granted that our Lutheran wedding vows were as strong as Catholic vows and we would remain married until death parted us. I confess that I was so happily married and bound by my vows, that I took my wife’s love for granted. On our tenth wedding anniversary she left me for another man.

I took for granted that our three children, ages two, five and six, would go with their mother, and they did for the first week. However, the living arrangements were inadequate, so I convinced their mother to let them come back home until she could better provide for them. A year later she divorced me and disappeared, leaving me to raise our children by myself. Although I was devastated by my wife’s abrupt departure and mysterious disappearance, I remembered that I had begged God for the blessing of children. God always answers prayer.

The task of raising three children was overwhelming, but God was with me and provided an abundance of childcare from my large Catholic family, as well as from my Lutheran Church, where I remained a member in good standing and where my children were enrolled in school. A teacher from the school offered to take care of the two older children after school and my mom took care of the baby during the day. When my youngest began school, the same teacher took care of all three of my children. Later, when my Dad retired, my parents took care of my children through the summer months. Still later, one of my five sisters provided free care before and after school.

As a single parent, raising my children to age eighteen brought many trials and tribulations, but I learned I could always trust God to see me through every situation, no matter how devastating. One such challenging situation was a long term struggle to repair a birth defect on my lumbar spine. Two radical fusion surgeries failed and eventually left me totally disabled. By the time I adapted to this life’s struggle, I had finally learned not to take anything for granted, not my career, not my dinner, not the ability to tie my shoes, not even the ability to walk.

My life had had so many unexpected changes that I didn’t even take my disability for granted. God had provided so much for me over the years that by now my faith was such that I just accepted the situation as part of a larger plan that God would reveal when the time was right. And in His time, God provided the greatest miracle of my life (aside from my children) – He healed my broken back. He completely healed my back. However, because of my lengthy history of back problems, and because the corporate world takes for granted that backs cannot be healed, I was unable to secure gainful employment.

That's when God trumped His previous greatest miracle and hooked me up with a full scholarship that will allow me to pursue an undergraduate degree in religious studies. He also inspired me to join the United Methodist Church where I have been accepted into the program for ordained ministry. Now, although I still take nothing in this world for granted, I do take God's Divine Mercy and Love for granted. His Love and Mercy have been unchanging throughout my life. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." [1]

[1] Hebrews 13:8 , NIV