A little dose of hope

That's what I took away from my meeting with a priest on Wednesday. In raising a child like Bella, it can be really taxing and leave you with more questions than answers. When things continue to domino as they typically do with Bella, Kristen and I often wonder what we did wrong in our lives leading up to having Bella. It really does make a person reflect on every situation in life where I could have been a better person... and for me thats a lot of reflection.

I was very impressed with the knowledge of scripture, books, and stories that the priest shared with me... Not that I would expect anything less, but I was having a hard time trying to remember everything he was throwing at me. It was a very uplifting discussion. He provided me with some information to help me learn/remember more about Catholicism to strengthen my faith and help me be a better husband and father who lives in that faith, which up to this point in my life has been pretty difficult. I hope to improve.

We discussed our family situation with Kristen being Lutheran and myself Catholic, as well as life with Bella and Oliver and the daily struggles/challenges we have. He continued to quote Matthew 25 throughout our discussion which up until Wednesday met nothing to me.

35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

This scripture is everyones's path to eternal salvation, he reminded me.

He said that Kristen and I live this every day of our lives with our little angel Bella. He commended us for this. He related our situation to other biblical stories as well as real life. He tried his best to understand our situation and how attending weekly mass and keeping God first in our lives has been very difficult at times.

He reminded me that too often we get caught up in trying to figure out why, that we need to stop and just have some hope that the future will be better and God will help us along the way. Since Bella is such a unique case with no medical understanding of what to expect as she grows older, we have always lived off of hope.

All in all it was a very positive and spiritually uplifting conversation and I couldn't wished for anything different to come away from our conversation. I look forward to taking the whole family in to meet with him in the near future. Thanks to Kristen for the constant reminder of me not receiving communion for the past 8 years, to get my butt in gear and go talk to a priest about it... And thanks to the priest for welcoming a lost sheep back to his flock and turning it into a positive uplifting experience.

Jesse