In 8th grade, my life changed...I began my journey to Christ and to the Church.
My grandma and I started the youth group at church when I was in 8th grade. It was slow getting started when we were building the youth group and hardly anyone came, but things started turning around quickly. My grandma found Life Teen and ordered materials, went to trainings, etc. It really made a difference in how I experienced my faith. It was way more interesting than our formal religion classes at church and it allowed us to get involved and be active.
I made lifelong friends, and we had a youth rosary group that met on Monday afternoons after school. It was mainly younger kids, but this was my first opportunity (in 8th grade) to learn how to pray the rosary and pray with others outside of Mass. It was a pretty big deal to me.
I also began to realize who Jesus really was and why it meant something in my life. I believe this is also when my Grandma Jean and I became closer because of our relationship with Christ. About this time, I started to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up. The top contenders were: farmer, FBI agent, and teacher. All vastly different!
Sophomore year rolled around, and I had a boyfriend named James and was serious about remaining a virgin until marriage (but didn't know why other than sex before marriage was wrong), and threatened him bodily harm if he touched me in the wrong way. It worked, but we were far from close. I wanted to confide in him and I wished we could have spent more time together, but he was always absent and could never come to the phone. He bought me good gifts, but I just wanted him to talk to me.
I was getting serious about my faith, but I hadn't really given my life over to Him. I also had no plans to be in ministry. My plans were to either be an English teacher (the poor me) or be the editor of Vogue (the rich me), live in a fancy penthouse, not get married, and have no kids. Completely delusional! In January 1999 I went with a bus load of youth from our parish to St. Louis to see Pope John Paul II (Now Saint Pope John Paul II!). I had been to conferences/retreats before, but you really start seeing how big the Church is when the Pope comes to town. Floods of people! I made it in the paper back home, with my picture too. I think that's when I really started to see God working in my life.
At the same time I saw God starting to work in my life, I also started having problems with my menstrual cycle. I usually had periods for 2 weeks, but now I was having them for 4-8 weeks. I went to the ob-gyn and they put me on birth control, which did absolutely nothing. I felt like I was bleeding to death and no one had any idea of what was wrong with me. I began to become scared about my future, and for once started to think about having kids. My friends were really no help in this area, but the girls on my softball team were concerned. I tried to leave my boyfriend out of it, but one of my friends told him about me being on the pill. I was so upset!
That summer I decided that I was going to break up with James, but he had went to see his mom and also told his sister that he didn't want to talk to me. Apparently he thought it would be better to break my heart by not telling me he was leaving. It back-fired on him though, because he ended up back at our school the next year, and I had to formally break up with him via a note. I had found out he had made fun of me to the entire tennis team, and the only senior on the team defended my honor. Praise God there was a silver lining to it all!
I went to the Steubenville Youth Conference in Atlanta that summer. The theme was "Goin' Home to My Father's House." I watched others as they cried, etc. at adoration...and I thought about my relationship with my dad. It was broken and we had a rough year. Phone calls just don't cut it when it comes to communication. I also came to terms with an addiction I had: masterbation. I had been doing it since 3rd grade, but didn't know what it was or that it was wrong. I prayed and asked God to help me rid my life of it. There were a lot of ups and downs with it after that, but I did finally kick it in college.
That weekend I also heard God calling my name. He said He wanted me to do youth ministry and I said, "Yes, I will do whatever you want me to." I never realized until much later how big that promise was that I made. However, I moved forward confident that I was to be a youth minister, and sought out the best place to go to school: Franciscan University.
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