Wrong Questions (03/20/2024)

When my husband asked me to marry him that day in January 1969, I told him yes, but I also told him that I so needed “roots” and asked if he could promise me that. He told me he’d never left the state of Iowa, he was pretty “root bound.” I obviously said, “yes.” And immediately after our wedding we started moving. We moved so frequently that I knew not to waste money on address labels. Then we moved to Tipton, Iowa and we were there for 8 years. I was getting comfortable. I was making real friends. And then he was asked to move again. I’d never complained; I wasn’t going to start then. We tried to look at the bright side. But in my quiet hours alone, I asked “Why?”

The move wasn’t easy. He had to stay back in Iowa for four months. I moved with the children to Madison, Wisconsin so they would not have to change schools midyear. He’d come on weekends. It seemed like everything went wrong. The day we moved in we sprang a leak in the upstairs bathroom that manifested itself in a dripping kitchen ceiling. Our heat exchanger was broken, so we didn’t have a heater. The movers broke the stairway up to the deck. As I tried to maneuver through the many curves thrown at us, my “Why?” just got louder.

Then the day that the temps dropped to the 30s, our heater still wasn’t fixed, and I was heating our home by way of the oven in the kitchen which I turned onto 450 and opened the door. Our home in Iowa still hadn’t sold, and I was trying to figure out how all this was going to work, my “Why?” reached a crescendo level. I had a long talk at God. It wasn’t with the LORD; you see, I did all the talking. And when I’d finished my railing and sank into my chair in tears, I realized I’d been asking the wrong question. “LORD,” I prayed, “what is it you’re asking us to do? What is it you’re asking of me?”

The doorbell rang. It was the man next door. He introduced himself, told me he’d visited with my husband the day we’d moved in and knew my husband was still working in Iowa. He asked if I had everything I needed. I broke down in tears, told him about the heater. He told me he’d be right back. And he kept his word. He and his wife returned carrying three space heaters. He or his wife checked on us every couple of days until my husband was able to come for good in December.

At church, I learned of their need for faith formation help, so I volunteered as a catechist. That fall, I ended up teaching two classes every Wednesday evening. That next spring I applied for the position of director of faith formation for the youth and got it. That year I also began my pursuit of my bachelor’s degree at a Madison Catholic college.

And the message wasn’t wasted on me. The evening after I railed at the LORD and realized I’d been asking the wrong question; I broke down and wept and asked the LORD to send the Spirit because I needed guidance to navigate this new terrain and to open me to the possibilities that He had in store for me and for us.

In the rear view mirror, as I look back, if we hadn’t moved, I realize there are a host of things that never would have happened: I wouldn’t have gotten the degree I got that led me to Mundelein Seminary as a professor of pastoral theology and associate formation director; I never would have been a director of multiple office of a major midwestern diocese; I wouldn’t have studied Hebrew, Greek and a host of other language that allow we to open the texts; I wouldn’t have the grandchildren I have because my children never would have met their spouses; etc. The LORD asks me trust as the LORD puts before me a path to follow in faith, with hope, fueled by love that has the potential to bring me closer to being the one He created me to be.

The LORD writes straight with crooked lines. At times we can’t follow, and we are filled with questions. But we must ask ourselves, are we asking the right questions. The LORD knows. The LORD loves us. Can we set down what we want to free ourselves for what the LORD wants for us?

As we continue on our journey of faith, hope and love to the empty tomb of Easter, as we seek to prepare ourselves to be better Christians, what questions does the LORD want us to ask?

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.