I had a coffee with My Lady in the backyard, and I asked Her if it’s possible and if it’s Her calling, I want to go to Medjugorje. The doors start opening. Peter started emailing and looking for how we can get to Medjugorje with a group. In two weeks, he organized the whole thing.

I feel that Blessed Mary calls people here. She calls Her children because She wants to reveal Herself to lots of people but especially to give us peace, like every mother. She puts Her arms around me, and says, “It’s okay.” You know when your mom hugs you? I feel that. 

Blessed Mary invited me, and the doors opened. 

Eight years ago, Peter was a very strong man, a builder. He built houses. He went to the gym every day. He was a great provider. We have three girls. Then one day, he became very dizzy. For two years, he was very dizzy, and nobody knew what was wrong with him. Many wise doctors completely missed it and misdiagnosed him and said he was going to die. He had a stroke.

Peter was a reader in the church. I was a Eucharistic Minister. My girls served when they were young kids. The church where we served, they knew us. I would receive baskets of prayers that were sent around the world, to Ireland, to Medjugorje, to Poland, to Germany, to monasteries, sisters, brothers, people start praying for him. We have a friend who is a priest. He would come every day and pray over him. 

Peter couldn’t swallow. After the stroke, he couldn’t sit. It affected his walking, balance, and, not speech, but swallowing. He was on a tube for three months, and he didn’t swallow. The first miracle happened on Palm Sunday. The hospital gave him to me for weekends. I could learn how to take care of him, like how to feed him. Father Don, who was our friend, said, “If Peter is home, I will come to your house and say Mass in your house.” He did that on Palm Sunday. On Monday, I took him back to the hospital because it was just for the weekend. The speech therapist gave him tiny bits of smoothie and said, “He’s swallowing!”

For Easter, he ate everything. I took him home and he ate everything. He was stealing food because he was so hungry. Normally, you have to be on baby food for a while because he didn’t eat for three months. He was eating meat. Peter was eating everything. That was a miracle. 

It was all prayers. It was God’s grace, prayers, and community. There was a group of men that came to our house every Friday. They would read the scripture and pray. And I have a group of women to support me. We say the Rosary, do praise and worship, and different things. 

Later, because of the pandemic, everything stopped, and it felt really hard. Then, I started walking and praying myself with my rosary, walking to churches or Stations of the Cross. I felt the whole world was discouraged. 

The moment we could leave, we did, and I believe Blessed Mary arranged that pilgrimage for us. Both of us experienced huge acceptance of his sickness, of whatever God wants to give us. Offering the suffering for different things, different people, different conversions, maybe that’s his calling.

I talked with a priest and I still need to believe he can be healed completely. He said to not lose faith in that. I said, “If that’s His will that Peter is supposed to suffer…” and he said, “No, don’t lose faith. Believe that he can be healed.”

We don’t know God’s will. That’s why we say, “Your will be done, not mine.” Whatever God’s will is, we need to be happy. If he will be healed, praise You, Jesus!

If he is healed, until that moment, I pray for acceptance, for his mental and spiritual health.

Now it has been eight years. I think he gets stronger spiritually every year. 

Today, the guys from Cenacolo carried him up Apparition Hill. Peter is a very proud Polish man. I was scared a tiny bit that he wouldn’t feel good because it’s a very humbling experience, but he was okay. I said, “Peter, the guys will carry you up,” and he said, “Okay.”

When the guys carried him, it really touched my heart. It was the most beautiful. I will be praying for those guys. For me, it was the most beautiful experience. I will pray for them that God gives them strength to heal completely from whatever they are going through. 

I am very happy I came on an organized pilgrimage. I just loved that. Seeing how people pray and how people kneel and reflect. You see on people’s faces how God touches them. 

We can be lukewarm in our faith, and when you come to Medjugorje and you see this and you experience this, you get a new experience of faith. You go home and get this fire within you. Then you say, “Yes, I will grow more in my faith.”

When we went to the evening Mass, the first thing, I ran to confession. I thought, “That’s what Medjugorje is known for so I better run first thing.” It’s conversion, prayer, you feel it here. You feel it in our churches. I just hope that we are more alive. Father said at Mass today, “How are you going to receive gifts with resentment? We need to open our arms. We need to be more alive.”

He said it’s the best of the devil’s tactics, the discouragement. With discouragement, he has a hold on us and more discouragement and depression and anxiety or whatever people go through. 

Through prayer and the Eucharist, the more you pray and praise and worship, then discouragement disappears. Prayer is the best gift God gives us humans to get rid of lots of stuff. I always say that Jesus is my doctor. Jesus is my psychologist and my spiritual husband.