The Eucharist gives me a sense of calm in my life. No matter how crazy or busy things get, anytime I'm in Mass waiting to receive the Eucharist, I find a place of peace that is like nothing else. 

My husband Matt and I, we've known each other since elementary school. We were good friends since about seventh grade and we started dating around senior year. We’ve been married for five years, but will celebrate being together for 11 years this year. 

We had this picture in our mind of what our life would look like. We were always open to eventually adopting or fostering a child, but I really had a desire to carry a child. A couple of years ago, we decided that we were ready to start trying to conceive. As the year went on and things weren’t happening, we were lost and confused. 

So we started going to the doctors and trying to figure out if something was wrong. We were both healthy and that's kind of where I started to just get angrier and angrier, because I had such a desire to be a mom and I felt like it was being ripped away from me for no reason. I basically turned that anger towards God. I said, ‘You know, you know my desires. You know what I want.’ And that's what everyone kept telling me, ‘Just keep praying,’ and nothing was happening. We were losing all hope of having a baby. 

I kept going to adoration and Mass, begging God to take that pain away, but it never left. I got to the point where I was so angry with God, I started ignoring Him. I stopped praying, I would skip Mass, I wanted nothing to do with Him. I stopped talking to God and I was turning away from him. But He was just gripping on to me.

I have suffered with anxiety my whole life. I have a constant inner monologue going but when I go to adoration and I sit there for a little, repeating ‘Jesus I surrender to you,’ everything quiets and I can just be with the Lord. Adoration is the only place I can go where my mind can go completely blank. So I kept showing up to church, begging for Him to take this desire away. Even though I didn't always want to go to Mass or adoration, after I would go, I did find peace in His presence. 

Then one night, I went to adoration where the priests were teaching people how to experience adoration. Afterwards, I sat in the church for a long time and one of the priests prayed with me, asked if I wanted to receive Reconciliation, and then prayed over me. From that point on, I let go of the anger and I put it in God’s hands. I don't think I would have been open to that priest for Confession or for him to pray over me if I hadn’t been sitting in adoration first. Jesus opened my heart up, without me knowing it. He put it in motion for me to start to heal. 

After I had that experience with adoration and with that priest, Matt and I had a really long conversation about where I was mentally, where he was mentally, and where we wanted to move forward. So right now we aren’t actively pursuing foster care or adoption. We decided to take this time to really keep growing as a couple. I'm not going to say that every day is perfect. There are still a lot of hard days. But it's not anger that I'm feeling, it’s not depression that I'm feeling. On those days that are hard, it's just more of a mourning for what I pictured our life to be. But I have a stronger conviction that God is going to provide for us where we need to be provided. And I trust that He is going to give us a better life than we could have ever pictured for ourselves. 

The Mass is where I feel connected to Jesus. I can feel him pulling me to him in the Mass. Receiving Holy Communion keeps me grounded. On my worst days, it helps me feel whole. On my best days, it’s a reminder of where my joy comes from.