At a faith based summer camp one of the speakers shared his story with us. I’ve changed the names, but wanted to allow his story to touch you, the way that it touched me. At the heart of his story is the message that we must hold tight and stay in relationship with God especially when times are tough. For our strength comes from God.
It all started when Dave began attending a youth group lead by a priest from his parish. Dave met a girl there, Elizabeth, who he liked because she had something that most of the other girls did not. She was a modest girl and her purity shown bright. They developed a relationship, went to prom and all that kind of stuff, but they were mostly friends. They respected the purity of each other. Dave was a bit worried since Elizabeth was going off to college in Ohio and he was staying in California. One day, she told him that she would like to meet him at a park. When Dave arrived, he sat down in her VW. It had been sort of an awkward relationship for a while and now he was worried. Elizabeth shard that she wanted to start hanging out with another guy. Hurt, Dave out of the car and walked away. After Elizabeth ended the relationship, Dave left feeling depressed. He stopped going to mass with his family. Rather than turning to God, Dave turned his back on God. He didn’t even think to ask for help. The loss of Elizabeth, and the letting go of God impacted him in many unfortunate ways. He got drunk; got into a bad relationship and ended up spending more time thinking about the exterior of a girl’s body than her real self. He was having a spiritual death experience. At times he still went to mass, but he did not receive communion because he was not right with the Lord. He was at least honest that he was not in a relationship with God. One time when he should have been studying, he went out drinking with his brother. One guy kinda pushed his brother as he walked past a couple of times and that started a fight. The next morning Dave had lots of stitches on his head. Now, there was a bad movie coming out and he was watching the news. He saw a crowd in front of the theader and one particular girl stood out. She was holding up a sign that said, “Jesus is my best friend.” Dave was touched by this girl and amazingly in response to the message, wanted to change his life around so he turned to God for help in making his life right. Dave was done doing it his way. Soon after, his girlfriend and her mom told Dave to come to confession with them. When he got to the front of the line, he noticed the priest was one that he knew from youth group. He kind of started freaking out but ending up going to confession with him and worked up the courage to break his bad relationship. About 10 days later, he received a letter in the mail. It was from Elizabeth and she said that if I wanted he could start writing her again. They started writing back and forth over the following year. He’s kept all the letters and they’re worth more to him now than his car. Dave didn’t know at this time, but Elizabeth was saying a nine day novena for her vocation. At the end, there was supposed to be a sign. Red roses meant marriage, white meant religious. Dave sent her 12 red roses and you can probably figure out the rest.
a quest for truth 