A Couple of Catholics

A blog about faith, intentional living and the joys and struggles of married life.

Tag: Thankful

A Guy Named Pat Padley (How We Met, part 1 of 4)

March 13, 2013 / / 3 Comments

As a reader of this blog, it is important that you realize a few things about me before I begin the saga of Pat and I’s journey to the altar. One, I love to tell stories and details are important. Two, I believe that God actively works in our lives. In this case, He has worked in a perfectly entertaining and unexpected way.

To set the scene for you all, back in 2008 I was working as a youth minister and Pat was working in video production. We had never met and wouldn’t until 2011. He was dating someone else at the time and so was I. We were both perfectly happy and had wonderful things ahead of us. Then God decided to shake things up a bit.

I can recall many late Sunday nights working in the youth room with my co-worker, Brian and Pat’s older brother, Nick, who volunteered with us. On more than one occasion the two of them would invite me to go out for drinks or just to hang out always try to entice me by telling me that I really needed to meet this guy, Pat. The phrase “you two would just get along great” seems to sound familiar to me. I always declined mostly because I was tired and lazy and a few extra hours of sleep seemed more appealing than chilling with some random guy and my co-workers.

Comments like this came up in conversations more than I would like to admit, and not just from my co-workers but other friends too. Here and there I would hear people mention him in passing, describing him as “really cool,” “really tall” and insisting that I meet him. Beyond these friends and coworkers merely encouraging me to meet him, more often than not they seem shocked that my life had not been privileged enough to cross paths with such an outstanding specimen.

Now if you know me at all, you know that I am rarely impressed. We’re all just people anyway and seriously nobody can be that cool. I mean it’s not Jesus we are talking about here. This Pat fella…he’s just a guy or so I thought. Little did I know what God had up His sleeve. Find out what happened next in part two of this four-part saga.

CHECK OUT: Part two: You Said That?!?!

 

Opportunity to be Grateful

January 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

As a young lady who recently ventured through the jungles of singledom myself, my heart goes out to all those good-hearted women and men searching for their vocation and trying to date. It can be rough out there. Dating is hard enough, but trying to date as a Christian in a world that is consumed by sex, money and selfish desires is a beast all its own.

Just the other day I was on a plane heading to one of my missionary teammates’ wedding when I overheard a gentleman sitting next to me complaining to his friend that “sometimes I just like to go out without her, have a few beers with the guys and check out other women.” He was speaking about his long time girlfriend, who he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry.

Now before I pick this apart, I must say that I do agree with half of his statement. Men should be men and be able to have man time without feeling guilty. I believe the same to be true for women. At its best, this type of fellowship can make us better people. I think back to some advice a professor once gave me. He told me that as a woman you can tell a man when he is not being a good man, but you can not teach him how to be a better man. He can only learn that from other men and vice versa.

With that said, this man’s overall attitude toward his girlfriend saddened me. It was obvious by his comments that he viewed relationships in a completely different light than I do. At one point later in the conversation he advised his friend, “marriage is when two people can be together, make the least amount of compromise and still be happy.” Of course because compromise would mean we take the risk of actually becoming more selfless creatures.

Now I’m not trying to bash this guy. After all who knows the experiences he has had that has brought him to his current opinion on this point? Either way it is this type of outlook that our world seems to grip so tightly, that disheartens me and at the same time reminds me how incredibly blessed I am to have found a man like Patrick.

He is a man who loves God more than me, a man who cherishes me and might be more anxious than I am to plan our wedding. What a gift, a completely undeserved one at that? But for as much as Pat loves me and as incomprehensible as that love can be at times I know that God loves me more, which is super crazy.

This is my hope for our culture that all may know the love of Christ and let that love dictate their relationships with others. Praise God for good men and women, healthy relationships and opportunities that remind me how blessed I truly am.

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