Around 1990, I heard about Medjugorje. I believed right away, and I wanted to come right away, but I didn’t. I didn’t get my invitation until over 30 years later.

I got an invitation. Really my pastor put it in our bulletin, and I just jumped. 

I had no expectations. None. I just came because I believed that the Blessed Mother was here, and I still believe that.

I would say it’s the closest thing to heaven on earth. My very first impression was that the veil between life and eternity was thin here, that I could just take one step, and I’d be in eternity. 

I have more confidence. I felt like, you know, you doubt yourself all the time, or at least I do. Right away, I just got confirmation that I’m journeying in the right direction. I’m a long way to go, but I’m going in the right direction. That’s important to me because I want to be going in the right direction.

I’ve always felt called deeper, but I feel like I have a better idea of how to do that, how to go deeper and closer to Jesus.

Jesus is the one who sent His mother to me. I didn’t know her at all. When I was on the verge of getting a very serious diagnosis, I asked Him to give me His grace and His strength, and He sent me his mother. 

I was looking up at the crucifix hanging from the rosary in my car, and it just got me that there He is hanging on the cross, and who is His grace and strength? His mother. So from that day on, she’s been in my life. 

Eventually I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I just kept going downhill. I had little children and a husband. I had to leave my job. My whole life turned upside down.

But my faith grew. I took up the cross and offered it to the Lord. The Blessed Mother walked with me every single day. 

Then I read a book about somebody who had come to Medjugorje with M.S., and when she got home, she heard the Blessed Mother saying to her, “Ask Him to heal you.” When I read the words, I felt like the Blessed Mother was saying it to me. I’m sitting on my bed. I’m going, “Wait, what?” I’d never heard of such a thing. People in my family don’t get healed. We just grin and bear it or whatever.

But I thought about it, and I said, “Well, I guess He could heal me if He wanted to, so okay, Lord, if You want to heal me, go ahead.” But it was almost like I was giving Him permission, like I didn’t have to ask Him to do that. It was almost like, “Do it if You want to.” 

But it didn’t happen right away. I attended a prayer meeting, and then a Life in the Spirit seminar, there was a healing Mass. My husband encouraged me to get in line. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to do it, but I did. I felt like the cosmos was staring down at me, like everybody in the church was looking at me. 

I had said to the Lord as I was walking up, “Lord, You can do whatever You want with me, whatever you want. If you want to heal me, good. If you don’t, good.” I felt just so in His will that I was good either way. 

I walked home with my cane that night. I crawled up the stairs to go to bed, but when I woke up the next morning, I was totally healed. It took me days to believe it because with M.S. you have good days and bad days. I thought initially I was just having a lot of good days.

Then I was in my garden in the sun. When you have a M.S., you cannot be in the sun. You’ll get an attack. They call it clonus and spasticity. Your arms and legs just take off without you, they just start moving. I always avoided the sun, but I was in the sun. I used to take two to four hour naps in the afternoon, and I would work through them. I forgot to take naps. When you have M.S., the naps take you. I played catch with my sons. 

Then I worked up the courage to say something to my husband, and my husband said, “I knew it! You’re healed!”

I said, “Shut up, shut up!” I was scared. I was really scared. 

Then we went to our prayer group, and I said to them, “I don’t know if I have the faith to believe this.” And they said, “We do.” That gave me a lot of strength. That helped me to embrace what the Lord had done for me.

I didn’t question Him at all when I was diagnosed. It’s in my family, M.S. I didn’t say, “Why me?” Nothing. I accepted it. 

I was so in love with the Lord. I trusted Him. I trusted Him with my future. It took time to get to that point. My father’s cousin died in her fifties of M.S., and I thought that would be me. I couldn’t stand the thought of not being there for my kids in my fifties.

The healing was harder. It was harder to embrace. 

I worked up the courage to tell my mother. My parents were churchgoers. That’s about it. I don’t even know that my father was. I didn’t even tell my father. I just told my mom, and my mom kind of freaked. She was worried that it was all in my head and I’d gone overboard and all that. 

She went with me to the neurologist, and he said, “There’s nothing wrong with you,” and he said, “You can go back to work,” which I didn’t want to do and I ended up not doing. I ended up staying home with my children for ten years because that part of the illness, being on permanent disability and all that, that afforded me the opportunity to be with my children instead of running off to work every day the way I’d been doing before my diagnosis.

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My husband was an atheist when we got married and so that tells you a lot about my own faith, that I would marry and atheist. I told him that I would be raising the children in the faith, and he agreed. Then when the children came and I actually started having them be educated, it was a real conflict in our marriage. I’m sure he was under attack a good part of the time. 

My older son was going to be receiving his first reconciliation. They were doing some event at the church, and my husband said that he would go with us, which was unheard of. He didn’t go to mass on Christmas or Easter or anything. The night came, and he dug in his heels, and he said, “No, I’m not going. This is for you. It’s not for me.”

I was so upset with him because I was so happy he was going and then he’s not going. We had a scene, and I locked myself in the bathroom crying, which is not unusual in a marriage.

I said to the Lord, “Lord, I need a miracle, and I need it now!” Just like that. Then, you know, that’s not going to happen. The Lord doesn’t respond well to that. 

But for the first time, because she had just entered my life, I turned to Our Lady. I said to her, “My Lady, you got your Son to turn water into wine before He was ready. Maybe if you go to Him, He’ll turn my husband’s heart.” 

That night, my husband ended up in church with us. Two months later, he was fully, all-in converted to the Lord, and I know that was Our Lady.

When we dated, we talked about God, and we would debate each other, and we liked that. That was interesting.

When I met Our Lady, I stopped doing any of that. My husband was concerned about my illness so he let me live my faith more than I was able to before without getting him angry. I stopped arguing. I stopped the debates and all that, and I just started focusing on my own relationship with Jesus and Our Lady, and he saw the change in me. 

That’s what Mirjana said yesterday. It’s not about being convincing. It’s are you being transformed in the Lord? And is that something that somebody is going to notice? So my husband did notice that, which I wasn’t even aware of. I was unaware that he was noticing anything.

I would say that to anybody. You get close to Jesus You get close to Our Lady. You live your faith. You grow in your faith, and people will see the change in you, and the Lord can do His thing, you know?