Who I am

        I am going to tell you who I am. I work for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  You see, I was raised a Catholic, but I didn't know what that was or meant until I was working in Denver when I was 18 years old. I only lived there six months, but it was a long, long six months and I was lonely and frustrated and sad in my life.  I was alone in Denver and living with a high school girlfriend and worked downtown at an oil company. I had no friends to speak of and my family had moved to Washington state.  I would take the bus downtown on a Sunday once and awhile and go into a Catholic Church after Mass and sit in the last pew. My pocket would be full of tissue to blow my nose with, because I knew that if I stepped into that church, the tears would come down and the nose would start running. I've always been a huge cry baby just like all the women in our family.

      I'm not going to get into how I was running my life, but I will say that my confusion was real. On one hand, I was naive and on the other I was a real daredevil always pushing to the limit. What 18 year old isn't? All I knew was that sitting in that hard pew in the large beautiful Church gave me peace. It was safe and God was there and it was beautiful. The world was scary. I ended up going to Washington to visit my mother and sisters and attend my mother's wedding to my stepfather. I was set up on a blind date to my brother-in-law's best friend on Friday the 13th. I liked the guy so much I married him four months later and now we have 30 years under our belts. We were married in the Catholic Church because I knew that was familiar and my mother wanted me to. I didn't even know the term 'practicing Catholic'.

      It wasn't until a year and a half later when I was visiting my family in Washington that I attended a Marian Movement of Priest's meeting with my mom and my sister. They were big into praying the rosary and stuff; I wasn't. I was big into being a party girl. At the meeting I heard a woman named Fern Grey talk about 'hiding priests' and 'chastisements' and 'apparitions'.  I didn't have a clue what she was talking about and I told my mother that. My sister later showed me a DVD at her house of Nostradamus and his predictions. It was scary stuff. When she dropped me off at my mom's home she asked me why I hadn't ever heard of Fatima, Lourdes, or the Blessed Virgin Mary ever appearing anywhere in the world. I jokingly told her that I didn't pay much attention to anything in Catechism class when I was younger except for the boys. She stood at the door and told me about Fatima, Portugal where the Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children in 1917. The miracle of the Sun and the warnings to the world if it did not come back to her son Jesus. It sounded like a fairy tale to me. I truly was so uninformed of these things I didn't even know what the Church taught concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary. I just knew she was beautiful and she was God's mom.

       As I closed the door, I realized no one was home and I walked down the hall glancing into the bedrooms to make sure the boogy man was not hiding in the house.  I glanced at the crucifix on the wall in my mother's bedroom and stood there. I didn't know what to say to the man named Jesus on the cross. I knew he knew all the bad things I had done in my life and I knew he was watching me, even though I tried to shove that thought to the back of my mind!  I was wanting to talk to Him, but felt that I was not worthy. I felt like a stupid teenage girl. Somehow, knowing His mother was not scary to me. Somehow, that was warm and comforting and agreeable.  I walked up to the crucifix and knelt down and told the Blessed Mother that if she really was appearing all over the world and if she wanted to use me somehow that I was open to it. I looked down and prayed because every time I looked at Jesus on the cross I cried. I cried because He knew that I was embarrassed of him.  He knew that I didn't want to be a JESUS FREAK.  The red neon sign at the homeless shelter flashing on and off. People scoffing and laughing behind your back saying, "Little miss 'holier than thou'".  I knew darn well I was a hypocrite and frankly, it was okay.  I was a comfortable hypocrite.  So I gave my life to His mom.  She could explain it to Him.  Thats what moms do.