6 minute read
WAITING PATIENTLY FOR THE LORD - Ben Pohl
Doug and Joni’s paths came together in 2006. Joni had been working in real estate for a few years and Doug had just returned to Michigan after doing some consulting work in Silicon Valley. He moved back to avoid the “dot com” bust and to be closer to his son in Williamston. He decided to pursue a real estate license and attended a training that Joni’s company was putting on. When Joni’s company relocated in 2008, Doug suggested she look for work in Lansing. They eventually married in 2015.
At the time, Joni’s only exposure to the Catholic Church had been at a Catholic school, which she attended in the fourth grade. Doug had never even been inside of a Catholic Church. Joni grew up Baptist, the daughter of a minister, and Doug was Lutheran. “After Doug and I got married, I’d been having this longing that we need to get back in church; we need to find a church. So we tried Baptist churches, we tried Lutheran churches, and we couldn’t really find anything that we liked.” They started going to a non-denominational church, but never felt that they fit. “We left there one Sunday morning and I was in tears and I told Doug, ‘We’re not going back there, I can’t go back there, it’s just like we’re not even going to church at all. I’m getting nothing out of it.’”
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“So we were heading home and [Doug] pulled the car over and I said, ‘Why are we stopping?’ And he said, ‘We’re gonna pray.’ And we prayed, and that was Sunday.” Doug and Joni prayed that day for a home. A community where they felt they could belong and encounter God. The Lord was listening, and had an adventure in store for them.
Not long before that Sunday, Joni had been working for a local cemetery and was looking for a change. She saw a job posting for a position at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery. “When I applied the description on the website said that they preferred a practicing Catholic. At that time I was working at another cemetery in the area and I told my husband, ‘You know what? I don’t care, I’m applying anyways, and if that’s where God wants me, that’s where He’ll put me!” After a few interviews, Joni was offered the position and accepted.
After crying out to God from their car on that Sunday, Doug and Joni didn’t have to wait long for an answer. They would do plenty of waiting in the future, but not yet. The following Saturday, St. Joseph’s hosted a service for the unborn where Joni met a couple from Resurrection. “We got to talking about churches and she asked me where we attend, and I said, ‘Well, we were going to this church, but we decided we’re not going back there, so I hate to say we’re actually going to be shopping around for a church.’” They invited Joni to come to Mass. She explained that she and Doug weren’t Catholic, but the couple insisted they should just come and see if they like it.
“On the whole ride home, I thought: Doug is gonna think I’m totally crazy and tell me, ‘No, we’re not Catholic, we’re not going to Catholic Mass.’ So I came home and I told Doug, ‘I just told a family that we would be [going] to Mass tomorrow morning at Resurrection.’ He said, ‘Okay, that sounds good.’” Joni was shocked, but Doug had not forgotten the prayer they made the Sunday before. The next day they went to Mass at Resurrection. They continued to attend week after week and soon the parish was starting an Alpha course. Joni and Doug joined and began to experience Resurrection Church and their own faith in a deeper way. In particular, the Alpha “Day-Away” brought about a profound shift in Doug: “When we did that, that was where we got in touch with the Holy Spirit and I felt the Holy Spirit come over me. There were issues in our life, not in our marriage, but in our life that were just becoming overwhelming. When the Holy Spirit came over me, it just changed my attitude about everything.”
After Alpha, Joni and Doug decided they wanted to make Resurrection their home and began attending RCIA. But their enthusiasm was tinged with fear. They had both experienced difficult prior marriages and had heard that the annulment process could be challenging. The paperwork and the waiting would last a few years. Joni recalls, “For both of us, it brought up a lot of painful memories because our previous marriages weren’t the best situations and that’s why we left them…but we look back at it now and would do it all over again.”
During the waiting, Joni and Doug attended RCIA twice (the second time because they enjoyed it so much the first time) and made their first confessions. For both of them, and in different ways, the grace of the sacrament of mercy was especially powerful. Joni recalls: “I was really feeling bad about myself. No one wants their marriage to end in divorce and everything. I was just feeling really down on myself and like God wasn’t forgiving me and that God wasn’t loving me. We went to a [Healing Encounter] and I was just sitting in my seat, bawling my eyes out, praying. A lady came down and sat next to me. I have no idea who this lady was, and she said, ‘The Lord told me to come up here and tell you that He loves you, you are His child, you are good enough, and He has forgiven you for everything that you’ve done. He wants you to stop beating yourself up. You are His.’ When she was telling me this, I just felt something go through me. I went up to pray and I was touching the humeral veil and I just felt something wash over me…it was like it just poured over me when I was praying. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry, or I wanted to laugh, that’s how happy I was. I went to get up, I could hardly even stand!”
For Doug, the thought of confession was hanging over him from the time they decided to start RCIA. Prior to his time in Silicon Valley, Doug had worked in anti-terrorism intelligence in Europe. “We were watching for [terrorists]…and stopping them. My unit was to stop them permanently. That was heavy on me. I would have nightmares, and I’m thinking [this] condemns me to, beyond purgatory. So I think, okay, here’s my confession, Fr. Steve. And I said, ‘I’m sinful like any other human, but here’s the one that’s bothering me, I can’t get beyond this.’ My first confession released me from a lot of horrors, a lot of fears, and a feeling of being unworthy. In my background as a Lutheran, we didn’t have that opportunity to go to a priest and receive absolution. There was this thing that was horribly haunting me, and now it’s gone.”
This past summer, Doug and Joni’s annulment was finally processed, and on August 23, 2020, in “the year of waiting,” their wait was finally over. They celebrated the sacraments and were received into the Catholic Church. They had found their home. The Lord had heard Doug and Joni’s prayer, set their feet upon rock, and placed a beautiful song of praise in their mouths: “For both of us, it’s just been more than we can comprehend.”
