I was feeling really depressed the other night. I was just laying in bed feeling like, “Why am I here, and why am I doing all this?”

Something told me to get up and go to the Blue Cross. I walked up there by myself. I was like, “Well, why do I expect to have Mary appear to me or have some kind of apparition?”

This voice came to me and said, “Why do you expect a miracle? It’s already a miracle that you’re alive? Just existing in the world is a miracle in itself. Why do you want anything else?”

I just felt peace. It was kind of like, “Well, that’s the answer. I’ve already received the miracle. The miracle is just being born and being here.”

———

That’s what I was asking our guide Miki about, if Mirjana ever felt sad that she’s been led where she’s been led? Was it ever hard for her?

It’s because I realized, I retired about a year ago, and it was like the Lord said, “You’re finished with what I told you to do,” but I looked back and I realized my entire career, through high school, I was always meant to be an OB/GYN. I fought it every bit of the way. I used drugs in college and tried to do everything I could just to screw it up. No matter what I did, the Lord brought me back to that path. 

I was going to be and immunologist. I was going to do internal medicine. I tried to give my OB/GYN rotation away and nobody would take it so I had to do it. Then when I did it, I realized, “Wow, this is what I was meant to do.” It’s the only thing I ever loved in medicine.

Looking back, I realized the Lord just kept pushing me to what I was supposed to do no matter how hard I tried to get away from it. 

I was just thinking about Mirjana. Is that the way they felt about it? “I have other plans. I want to do other things. Why was I called to this?”

It’s amazing how sometimes if you just listen to the Lord, He brings you to things. We fight it so much. 

———

This is my second time in Medjugorje.

Janet’s been wanting to come for 20 years. She came with a friend.

Then I read The Miracle Detective. As I read that, I said, “I have to go to this place,” because it was almost written as a scientist would write it. It wasn’t like a Baptist minister preaching. 

So I came to have that experience. The thing that really changed me was Mirjana. When I met her, I realized, “This is just a normal person.” The whole town, the miracle is that everything is so normal. It’s hard for me to explain. It’s like we’re experiencing so many miracles every day in everything around us. 

One of the things I always say is, “Trying to understand God is like trying to teach a dog algebra.” There are certain things I don’t think we can come close to understanding. 

I say the Rosary. I’m not Catholic. I don’t take Communion. I was raised Methodist. There are so many things I feel like I don’t understand. I go to Mass with Janet every day. What’s happened is every so often I’ll hear a word that I’ve heard all my life. I remember sitting there in Mass and the priest said the word, “faith,” and all of a sudden it was like I understood that word for the first time. It’s funny how you hear it over and over again, and then all of a sudden you really hear it. Faith isn’t trying to understand anything. Faith is believing what you don’t understand. 

It’s made me realized that God is constantly around us in everything in a way that I don’t even have clue how to understand. That’s where I am. I’m kind of at the point of being the dog that doesn’t understand algebra. 

That’s where the faith part really comes in. The more I learn about science, the more I’m amazed at God. An apparition is one thing. I’ve tried to figure that out. Is that part of something from other dimensions outside of time? I just assume that it’s something outside this three dimensional world we live in that we can’t comprehend. 

Would you consider becoming Catholic?

I don’t know yet, if that makes sense. Janet was born into it, and that’s a different faith. I feel like I have to have a certain understanding of what the Eucharist really means to a Catholic. It’s not that I don’t believe, but I don’t know if I understand it enough. It’s one of those things where I just pray and wait to see what happens. I don’t think it’s a decision I make. I think it’s a decision that comes to me. 

You can see I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s taken me a long time just to figure out I don’t know what I’m talking about. I finally understand that I don’t understand. 

I can’t explain it, to be really honest. It’s something I pray about, and I’ll know when it’s time. 

That may be my problem right now is that I’m saying, “I don’t think I could ever understand this,” and on the other hand I’m saying, “Well, I need to understand it in order to be part of it.” That’s probably a paradox I should pray about. 

I think of the Eucharist, then I look at a rock, and say, “Well, God and Jesus are all of it. It wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for that.” It’s hard for me to see how is the Eucharist different than all the things that He’s already in.

It’s not that I doubt. I’m just confounded.