One Thing After Another
Monday, June 13, 2022
Wow, VatiGod*, you’re working overtime in my life right now! First you poke me to take a four-day trip to Steubenville, Ohio, to check it out… and then you get me into an Airbnb near the Franciscan University that’s owned by a licensed Realtor!
My host just told me about her occupation, “in case you want to go house hunting.”
Holy cannoli! Can you make this any more obvious?
I’ve been waiting so long. Steubenville has been on my radar for years now, thanks to Pints with Aquinas podcaster Matt Fradd who moved his family there and has been advertising it as an oasis for Catholics ever since. I also checked out Zillow for real estate, just for laughs, and discovered that I could probably sell my house up here in Vermont and buy a house down there for cash, mortgage-free, with a hundred grand to spare. This could be my golden-age solution, since my actual retirement savings are more or less nonexistent.
I’ve been poking and prodding you forever, but you refused to give me the go-ahead. Talk about “divine timing.” The random Bible verses I often pick as a form of communication with you gave me nothing but stuff like, “Blessed are those who wait for the Lord.”
I even googled, “God, what do you want me to do?” and then clicked the I feel lucky button. That one was even more direct: “If you don’t get a clear sign from God on what to do, then maybe the right thing, right now, is to do nothing.”
But then you gave me the thumbs up, finally, and I booked that flight and that Airbnb, and then my host is a Realtor. You do have a great sense of humor, I’ve got to give you that, Vati.
You determined the duration for me too. I tried to book a week, but the cost was forbidding, so I ended up with the cheapest tickets for a four-day trip. Not even; when you subtract the travel time, it’s just two and a half days, really. What can you do in two and a half days?
Don’t worry, it will be enough, says the Holy Spirit. All right. Fine. So be it. Doing as I’m told.
Well, there’s one thing. Father J. tells me to go up to the Franciscan University campus and visit the Portiuncula. I don’t even know what that is, but sure, I’ll check it out.
***
Whoa, VatiGod, it’s really one thing after another with you. One of the reasons that I’ve been hesitating to move out of state was that A. had his little girlfriend here, which would mean I’d almost never see him anymore. Today, he comes home from his summer job and tells me they’ve broken up. I ask him if that means he’d come home and stay with me for winter and summer breaks if I move elsewhere.
“Yes, Mom,” he says indulgently, “I’ll stay with you wherever you want to go.”
I love him so much. You really are removing all the obstacles now, aren’t you, Lord?
*VatiGod is a term of endearment I coined for God the Father Almighty. “Vati” (pronounced fuh-tee) literally means “Daddy” in German.