I Didn't Know I Was Watching My Future

For me, one of those moments came on Holy Thursday in 2014.

Janis and I were sitting together in a Catholic church. I was still in RCIA, preparing to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. 

Everything was still new to me. 

The incense. The music. The washing of the feet. The procession. The priest. The deacon. 

I watched everything. 

What I was not doing was imagining myself as a deacon. 

Nothing could have been further from my mind.

I wasn't becoming Catholic because I wanted to be ordained. I wasn't looking ahead to some future ministry. At that moment, I was still trying to understand the road immediately in front of me. 

Could I really do this? 

Could I leave behind the religious world that had shaped me from childhood and profess the Catholic faith? 

Could I finally follow where I believed God was leading me? 

That was enough for one winding road. 

And Janis was sitting beside me. 

She couldn't have known what was coming either. 

Years later, when the possibility of formation for the permanent diaconate unexpectedly entered our lives, I would discover that this particular calling wasn't mine to discern alone. 

Janis would have a voice in that decision. 

More than a voice, actually. 

She had veto power. 

And let's just say she wasn't exactly waving me toward the starting line. 

But that is her story too, and if that part of our journey is ever told here, it will be told with her blessing. 

On that Holy Thursday night, though, none of this was on our minds. 

We were simply a husband and wife sitting together in a pew. 

I was watching a deacon serve at the altar. 

I didn't know that years later I would stand there myself. 

I didn't know that the woman beside me would have to decide whether she was willing to walk that road with me. 

I didn't know what God was doing.

I didn't know I was watching my future. 

Looking back, I've come to believe that life is filled with moments like that. We live them without recognizing their significance. Years pass, the road turns, and suddenly we find ourselves looking backward and thinking: 

Oh. That's what that was. 

Maybe you've had a moment like that too. 

A person you almost didn't meet. 

A door you nearly didn't walk through. 

A decision that seemed insignificant at the time. 

A moment you couldn't possibly have understood until years later. 

Sometimes we don't recognize God's hand while the story is being written. 

Sometimes we have to travel farther down the winding road before we can look back and see where He was leading us all along. 

If you'd like to step back into that part of my journey with me, I'm sharing a sample chapter from my memoir, The Long and Winding Road: From Cultic to Catholic. 

Chapter Thirty-nine, “Take It To The Limit,” takes you into that Holy Thursday night - when I was still preparing to become Catholic and had absolutely no idea what the future held. 

I invite you to read it. And perhaps, as you do, you'll remember a moment from your own life when you didn't realize you were watching your future. 

Following Truth Wherever He Leads.