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Nothing is impossible for God. I know this because He saved me, a sheep so lost she mistook brambles for green pastures, and He did it through my husband, a tenured atheist whose favorite pastime in college was debating Christians in Bible study until they doubted their faith. Yes, somehow God took two sinners who loved sinning and steered our hearts to him through each other.
To understand how far into depravity and brokenness God's grace extends, I have to tell you of our past before we met. I was born to parents who wanted desperately to serve God, to give up luxury and safety for the missionary life, to save souls for His kingdom. Unfortunately, they were misled in their passion for Christ and ended up in a cult, "The Children of God." Despite their love for God and good intentions, the theology and praxis of the group was twisted, and every single one of my siblings and I were abused in many ways for many years.
When I rejected the teachings of the cult, I rejected God as well. I couldn’t distinguish between the truth and the lies, so I rejected it all. From the age of 13 to 24, I did what was right in my own eyes. I held onto the Christian values of service, justice and charity, and wanted desperately to heal the world, but I was sucked into hookup culture and radicalized in leftist politics. I used people for pleasure and justified it because it was consensual. I raged at people who thought differently than me and called it social justice. I guilt-tripped myself over and over and called it reparation. I cheered on my friends who sold their bodies for money and called it inclusion and support. I didn’t think about God or religion except to repost a meme mocking the Virgin Mary or the “sheep” mentality of religious people, all the while practicing a false religion and worshiping false gods without even knowing it. It wasn’t until I met my husband that I started wrestling with God, and in the summer of 2024, after years of tears and questions and frustration, God spoke to me during the Holy Spirit Alpha retreat hosted through the St. John Society here at St. Ann Catholic Church, and I’ve been his follower ever since.
My husband was on a steady path of atheism for 10 years when we met. He, too, was raised with a false version of Christianity, Seventh Day Adventism. He was devout as a child, even being selected to preach a sermon to his peers and arguing with his friends about their souls when they ate unclean food. However, when he started asking questions at the end of high school, he realized his pastor had no answers, and the atheists on YouTube seemed to have way more knowledge than his church. Like me, he couldn’t discern the truth from the lies, so he rejected Christianity and God altogether.
It was heartbreak that led him back to God. Despite his desire for marriage and family, he chose self-indulgence. Despite his professions of love and commitment, he pursued pleasure wherever he could find it. He realized that he was failing to live up to his values, and that he had no foundation for those values in atheism. On a phone call with his cousin, he finally realized that the ultimate act of love he witnessed in his life was that of Jesus on the cross. He knew that if it were up to him alone, he would never be able to love, and he would fail as a husband and a father. He knew he needed to fix his gaze upon Christ if he wanted a chance of having a healthy, whole family of his own.
So, in December 2020, Christ led a raging leftist with horrible misconceptions about how to heal this broken world and an overconfident atheist with a desire to love better together over a backyard fire, and 4.5 years later, on Easter 2025, we were both baptized into the Catholic Church. The miracle He worked for our salvation is only just the start. He has continued to provide and guide our family in the most incredible ways over the years, and we are so excited to see how He uses us in His salvation plan for other lost sheep.