Something profound happened to me yesterday.
I’ve been a Catholic my whole life. I was born into the Catholic faith, was baptized as a child, received my sacraments, reconciliation, first communion, confirmation and then was married in the church as an adult.
I always considered myself Catholic, but I didn’t exactly follow the rules or necessarily take it seriously.
I was sexually assaulted by a peer from school at 14 years old and it changed me. He also attended my church every Sunday.
When I went off to college and went off on my own, I strayed from the church. I thought my worth was in obtaining a man. It became my main focus. I became hypersexual, so that I never had to feel the feeling of being r@ped again.
After several failed relationships, I thought I found my knight in shining armor at 21. Everything was wonderful at first. He love-bombed the hell out of me. I finally felt I had found a man who truly loved me, but things went downhill fast. I became pregnant quickly and married him due to the pregnancy and him being a foreigner, and I thought I was in love.
Since I was having a child, I wanted to get right with the church again so I could raise my children to be in the church too.
I remember the day I went to confession and was shunned out of the confessional. The priest scolded me and would not absolve me of my sins. It was an older Spanish priest. I did not realize at the time, that I had to be married in the church to be considered married. We were married civilly but not in the church and because of that, I could not be forgiven of my sins. I left the church that day angry and in tears.
I became pregnant again 11 months after having my first child. Both children were baptized in the church and then their father and I were married in the church as well.
I was a stay at home mom, raising my children and taking care of the home while my husband worked. After a while though, I started to feel trapped. I wasn’t allowed to have friends. I wasn’t allowed to go out. I wasn’t allowed any personal freedom.
He became extremely possessive and insecure and the relationship became incredibly abusive. As a Catholic, I didn’t believe in divorce, so I thought we could work things out. No matter how much I tried to fix the marriage, it just got worse and worse.
After 6 years of marriage and being torn down to all hell, and finally getting to the point where I was doing well enough financially, I made the decision to leave for good. I never thought in a million years that I would be punished for leaving an abusive marriage.
I left with nothing but the clothes that I owned, the car that I leased, and my children and had to completely start over. I had to spend thousands of dollars getting a new place, buying furniture and household items for our new place, and clothes and items for the kids.
Due to the laws in the state I was living in at the time, and even though there was documented abuse, and a documented problem of alcohol abuse on his end, the courts ruled that we keep 50/50 child custody. With that custody arrangement, because I made more money than him at the time, they ordered me to pay my abuser child support.
They did not care that I was a stay at home mom virtually our whole marriage until the end. They did not care that he abused me. They did not care that he had an alcohol problem. They did not care that I left with nothing and had to spend all my money starting over. I was still ordered to pay him. Mind you, I was in sales, and didn’t even have a truly stable income. I worked off commission. I just happened to pull in more than him that year because I did so well financially with the pursuit in mind of being able to live independently on my own, without him.
It was a gut punch, and a complete betrayal from the system that I once believed that would protect me. I could just barely afford to live on my own, let alone to pay him. From there, a downward spiral would ensue.
I was diagnosed with severe depression and Complex PTSD from the turmoil of the relationship and the aftermath of what I experienced in the courts thereafter.
I ended up losing everything over the course of a few years fighting his continual harassment through the court system. I lost my income, my home, my friends, my support system and eventually my kids. My own mother even betrayed me.
Everything I had done in leaving that marriage was for my kids. I did not want them to grow up thinking it was normal to be treated that way by a man, and I ended up losing them. They were the only thing that mattered to me.
I didn’t want to live. I had hit rock bottom. I didn’t understand why God would allow this to happen to me.
I once again strayed from the church because I was angry at God.
I stopped talking to my family for a few years after feeling betrayed by them. It wasn’t until a few years into COVID, where I was watching a YouTube video speaking on a near death experience where someone met Jesus in their experience, that I decided to forgive my mother.
Jesus, in the video, showed the person who was temporarily dead, that he wept at families fighting one another. It was in that moment, that I knew I needed to forgive, for Jesus.
Not long after that, I got a call from my father, who I hadn’t heard from in years, that my children were coming to visit them, and he asked if I’d like to see them. Of course I did.
I was able to visit with my kids a few more times over the next few years when they visited my parents, until my ex-husband found out that the kids were visiting with me.
He stopped allowing them any contact with my parents and with me. I was completely in the dark on my kids. I could not talk to them or see them, no matter how much I tried.
My oldest daughter tried to commit suicide in May of 2025. Thankfully, she was not successful.
At this point, with the help of my parents, we went back to court to try to get access to them again and to help my daughter especially. We thought this was God opening a door for me to get my kids back in my life.
After spending nearly $25k on court fees and lawyers, we were out of money. We also found out during a child interview, that my daughter had been completely brainwashed by my ex-husband after him keeping them away from me, and that she did not want anything to do with me.
It was going to be at least another $50k to even be able to so much as talk with them. Once again, I felt trapped and in a hopeless situation.
How did the system become so corrupt and evil, that it would take children away from their perfectly good loving mother, give them to an abusive immigrant and dangle them in front of her with the extortion of hundreds of thousands of dollars, that she did not have?
Before we went back to court, I started to become closer with God. I read the entire bible last summer and prayed every day. My other children were even praying to see their older sisters again.
The hope of reunification became crushed after the court proceedings. They treated me like a deadbeat mother, didn’t even give me the chance to present my side, and left me with no viable options.
As much as I wanted to be angry with God again, I refrained. There had to be a reason for my suffering. I came to the realization that even though God did not give me what I wanted, I still had to be okay with it. I still had to love God, with or without my kids.
I forgave my ex-husband, and even prayed for him, even though he had ruined my life and terrorized me for years.
My ultimate goal at this point was to get to heaven, and to be a saint. Since I couldn’t reach my earthly goals, this was the only reasonable goal I had left.
My suffering, although none of it made sense on Earth, made sense to me in another realm.
I wanted to be closer to God, to Jesus, and our holy family. Jesus suffered more than anyone for all of us, and Mary suffered watching her only son be crucified for all of mankind. If I couldn’t have my family together, maybe I could feel whole in the holy family.
As the war in Iran has broken out recently, and the revelations of how corrupt our government truly is, has become increasingly evident to me, I thought of the Blessed Mother.
I’ve had some of the church songs stuck in my head recently, like “Immaculate Mary” and “Ave Maria” so I started listening to them at home.
I thought of the apparitions of Mary. One of the most famous appearances was her apparition to the children of Fatima and the miracle of the sun she performed there. She said for them to pray the Rosary daily for world peace.
I even posted about it yesterday.
Then, as I sometimes do, I joined the Pray the Rosary space around 8pm. I was a couple minutes late but I made sure to jump on and made it in time for the beginning of the first mystery.
By the fourth mystery, the Assumption of Mary, I experienced something truly wonderful.
As I was trying to meditate, I looked up, and above my dresser, I saw a vision of our Blessed Mother. It was like a flash of light in the shape of the profile of Mary, with her head down praying into her hands, as if she was there praying with me.
It was similar to when you look into the sun, and close your eyes, you can still see the image of the sun even in the darkness. That was what the flash of light in the shape of Mary looked like to me, except my eyes were open.
I blinked, and the image had disappeared. Tears started pouring down my face as I continued on with my prayers.
It was only a split second that she appeared. She didn’t say anything, but the fact that she appeared, I received the message.
I only pray the Rosary periodically. I knew about Fatima, and her telling us the pray the rosary daily to obtain world peace, but I didn’t take it seriously.
Now I know to take it seriously, and will pray it daily, along side our Blessed Mother.
In conclusion to my story,
I’ve realized that after a life full of sin, that has stripped me of all things that I have cared about in this earthly life, the ONLY man that is worth pursuing and will make us whole again - is Jesus Christ.