The Way God Planned It

Once there were grandparents who longed for Catholic grandchildren.  They had raised their own children in the Church, but they had fallen away and taken their children out of the Church with them. The grandparents went to Mass and prayed their rosaries faithfully and asked God to soften the hearts of those they loved, wouldn’t He please give to them Catholic grandchildren?

Across town, a mother held her new baby and prayed.  She was falling in love with the faith in which she’d been raised, but there were so few Catholic relatives left.  Why couldn’t God bring her family back to the Church?  Why didn’t they want the treasure she had discovered? Wouldn’t God please find some way to give her children a Catholic family?

One August Sunday morning, a baby cried in church.  The grandmother peeked over her shoulder and grinned at the tiny boy with fluffy hair, his wriggling older brother, and their shyly peeking sister.  Her eyes met the eyes of their mother, and her face softened into a grandmother’s knowing smile.

It was not long before that fluffy head was resting in the grandmother’s arms as she crooned to him a lullaby.  The small girl soon found that the grandfather’s lap was her favorite place to curl up and sit.  The middle child discovered to his delight what it meant to have adoring grandparents living just on the other side of town.  

It wasn’t long before the mother and the grandmother knew that they were the answer to each other’s prayers. Both had begged God for a family to uphold them in faith and love them well, and each had found her own prayers answered……not as she had thought she wanted, but in the perfection of God’s plan.

The family we never knew we always wanted.

*From our Oma: ” You are so right. I never wanted anything except Grandchildren in the Church to share with them the beauty of our wonderful Faith. I never had thought that my Children would live life without the Church I so love. I still pray but I also revel in the beauty of Catholic Grandchildren that I can share my own story with and know they understand what I felt then and do now. Love you Oma”