About a year ago, my aunt told me that she was thinking about going on a pilgrimage. I wasn’t too sure about it because I just had a kid. Talking about it with Dane, they were trying to see if it would work, and it didn’t really seem like it was going to. That was a lot on his plate.

I almost thought about saying, “Hey, I’m going to have to back out of this.” And he pretty much was like, “No, you’re going to go. I’m going to do whatever it takes.” Because I think he knew I needed a mommy break, but I was also secretly hoping it would be more of a spiritual breakthrough. And I definitely think it was. 

Only like a year ago had I ever heard about this place. I’d heard of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but never knew exactly what it was. I started doing some research. 

I didn’t grow up Catholic. I grew up Christian. I didn’t know anything about the Catholic faith. I knew that my aunt was Catholic, and that’s pretty much it. I had a few friends that were Catholic. We were young. It wasn’t like a big deal for them.

I haven’t really been going to church in the past 15 years.

There were definitely times where it was more like me giving a big old finger to the sky, asking Him to show me His way, a sign, anything. I felt like there was nothing. I don’t know if I was just being blind or being a brat. I don’t know. There were times where I would pray, but then I’m like, “Okay, it doesn’t seem like it’s working.”

After having my son, I was like, “This is something that needs to be more prominent in my life.” 

For a long time I was practicing witchcraft and doing the whole Paganism thing. That was kind of a dark time in my life. It didn’t seem like it at the time. I was like, “Finally something that I really love! This is so cool!” But it was very obvious at some point that I didn’t need to be playing with that. I wasn’t playing around. I knew it was serious, but that’s serious. It was getting really dark, and terrible things were happening because I wasn’t using my words properly and being smart about it.

That was where I left off there a few months before I found out I was pregnant. I’m really glad that I didn’t bring that into my new family. 

The most recent God-smack was my son was having really bad sleeping problems. He was having night terrors every single night. We put him down, he would go to bed just like that, like an angel. Then at a certain time every night, 1 or 2 a.m., somewhere in that hour, he would wake up screaming and crying. 

This was actually terrifying when this was happening. You would pick him up because you’re like, “Oh, my baby!” And he didn’t know what was going on. 

He was born with clubfoot. He had to wear casts to slowly recorrect that, and then he had a bar. It’s really hard to hold him because his feet are shackled with the bar with his boots.

It was kind of dangerous to hold him when he’s flailing and not knowing what’s going on. He doesn’t know who you are. Nothing can console him. He won’t nurse. He won’t take a bottle. He won’t go back to sleep. Even holding him, it would take hours to get him back to sleep, every single night for months and months and months. 

One day, it just kind of dawned on me, I had everything—tarot cards, Ouija boards, spell books, like you walked into a magic store, not play magic, but real occult things, satanic things, pretty much everything that you would need as a witch—in my house. And I’m like, “That’s right next to his room.”

The next morning, I took everything out that I could find. I know there’s still some stuff in there. I haven’t really dug through everything. But I burned all the tarot cards and prayed the whole time. I broke all the wands, threw them away, and burned them. Everything I could find, any spells that I had ever written, any books, everything, I tried to get rid of it all. 

I felt a lot of peace. I think God was like, “I know there are other things in there, but you’re showing me that you’re trying. You’re showing me the effort. You’re showing me that you care enough to do what’s right.”

He gave our whole home, our whole family, peace. That was really powerful to feel that.

I’m still finding things. Every time I find it, I get rid of it, and I say prayers. I even thought in my head, “Oh, let me burn some sage throughout the house,” but that’s still kind of pagan so let’s not do that.

I would pray every time I closed his door at night. I would lay hands on his door and say, “God, please, please keep him safe through the night,” and he stopped having night terrors.

That was right when I had heard about Medjugorje. So I was like, “I want to go. I really want to go.” My husband made it possible because he knew I needed it. Even though he’s not very religious, he grew up religious. I’m praying that the Lord will soften his heart again too. 

We talk about it logistically, like, “Yeah, we should go to church. We should start praying more often.” But when I go home, I’ll be like, “You know, we really should. Let’s stop talking about it. Let’s actually really do it.” 

It’s been powerful. It’s been crazy. The whole point leading up to me getting off the plane, I was like, “Lord, please soften my heart. I really need help. I need prayer. I need a lot.” And I really feel like He’s softened my heart. He definitely gave me a lot of prayer.

This has probably been the best thing that’s happened to me since my husband and my baby boy. 

I’m excited to smack him with all his. I keep daydreaming that when I get home, I can’t wait to tell him all about this, and he’s so excited to hear.

I’m nondenominational. This is very different. Even before we left, Eli and I were talking on the way up like, “It’s so weird. They, like, worship Mary. That’s crazy.” 

We were both misunderstanding the whole Catholic thing. We were like, “I don’t know about this whole Mother Mary thing. This is basically just a free vacation that our aunt’s paying for so we’re going to go, but we’re going to keep our guard up. We know what’s right.”

Everything’s so moving, and everything is so beautiful here. I guess because I’m not Catholic, it’s hard to piece it all together. But somehow God was like, “Hey, I’m still here. This is still about me.” Now I know that you guys don’t worship Mary. It all makes sense. 

Eli was like, “I don’t believe in this. I don’t believe in that. I don’t know about this.” I was like, “You need to start asking questions. I’ve been asking questions, and it’s not what you thought. Don’t forget, they serve the same God. You’ve got to stop being mean because we’re here for the same person, the same thing.” He’s kind of catching on to it too.

Eli is already on fire. Obviously, you can walk further and further with the Lord. It never stops. But my baby brother is incredible. 

We’re not very close. I’m the oldest. He’s the youngest, so we never had much in common. I had moved out way before he even got to high school. 

We’ve definitely bonded. He’s been able to draw me in, and I’ve also been able to draw him in in different ways.

Definitely both of us have new mindsets about Mary. I love that you’re asking her to pray for you. When we were up on Apparition Hill, I was doing that too. I don’t really know exactly what to pray, the rosary and all that.

I was thinking about how the angel came to Mary and was like, “Hey, I need you to be Jesus’s mom.”

Obviously she was nervous, but she did it. When you get pregnant, hopefully you’re the type of mom who is like, “Okay, I’m on board. This is me now. I’m going to be a mom. This is so cool.” And then you start adopting the idea and daydreaming.

But she wasn’t just asked to be Jesus’s mom. She was asked to be the church’s mom. Mary agreed to be so much more and just said yes. Whereas, I agreed to be a mother, but every day do I agree to do it all with a happy heart? 

I think my husband is going to be really happy when I go home. I’ve learned a lot, not only about praying and listening and being open with myself and with God, but about being a mother and a wife too.

I was talking to another pilgrim who is a mother like, “How do you do it?” All the kids were goofing off and making a ruckus, being so loud, and she was just sitting there. I was like, “Can I have some of that? Whatever she’s having, I need that.” So I asked her, “I keep asking for patience and I don’t feel like it’s coming. How do you sit here stoic and peaceful and gently talking with your husband? How are you doing that in the chaos?”

She was like, “I stopped praying for patience.” I’m like, “What? What do you mean?” She’s like, “Well, every time I prayed for patience, I got pregnant. When you ask for patience, you get trials.”

I’m like, “I’m gonna start praying for peace.” 

Mirjana is so kind and so sweet. She’s so beautiful. I can sense and see this joy in her. The way she serves and gives, she could be like, “I’ve seen Mary. You guys should be serving me because I’m the visionary,” but so humbly, she was serving all of us. 

I said thank you to her, but I didn’t realize who she was. I never would have known, but you know when you see someone who is just so happy, they’re so pretty? You see it like it’s leaking out of their pores. They’re so beautiful. I saw that in her. She was humble. 

I think if you’re going to be working for the Lord, that needs to be one of your biggest attributes. And she’s freaking got that. She just wants to give and serve. And I think that’s a big ministry. That’s how you show the love of God.

I really like history and that aspect of things. I can’t wrap my mind around how in the eighties, the government was plucking her out of school and bullying her and she was leaving without a parent and she was a child.

That’s angering. That’s crazy that that’s just how the government worked. And how she was simply like, “No, dad, I’ve got this. It’s okay.” Because she knew her dad would be hurt or killed. She was a teenager. I never had that courage. 

She said, “I’m not alone.” From a spiritual standpoint, I was mind blown by that. 

You can feel it. Maybe not getting off the plane because we were excited and tired, but when we walked into the building, it felt good. It wasn’t just good to be off a plane, but, like everyone keeps saying, it feels good to be home. It feels like this is home. 

I remember walking in here, and it felt like I had been here before. It felt peaceful, it felt positive, and I wasn’t really expecting that. 

I was like, “I don’t know, man. They’re worshiping somebody else besides God.” I never bothered to do research on the Catholic faith specifically.

But when I came here, I was like, “It doesn’t feel evil.” And I know evil. I’ve been there. I’ve practiced that, worshiped that. In the moment, it feels really nice. It feels good, but it doesn’t feel like peace. It feels like you’re fighting, feels like you’re winning a fight, but it’s a false win. 

There’s a big difference between actual peace and the fake peace that satan tries to sell you, the knockoff version of peace. 

I’ve learned so much about so many things. This week has been crazy and really good. I’m so blessed that my aunt thought of me. I’m glad that Eli was here so that he can bring me up and we can battle each other on what we believe and really talk about it.

I’m really thankful. I feel like everything always works out for the good of the Lord.