Apr
10
2020
By Anonymous (not verified)
By Annemarie Thimons
A house in Kingston, New York, on the same block as a tattoo parlor and "safe-disposal" heroin dumpsters - that wasn't a place to raise a growing family. But news of our fifth child coming motivated my husband, Tom, to realize that we needed a home in a cleaner neighborhood -especially since our older children were learning how to read and the graffiti-covered buildings posed a literary shock.
For these reasons, you can only imagine our surprise when our home sold in four days flat! I'm a lover of spiritual consolations, so when the house sold on St. Philomena's feast day - the saint whom we honored at our wedding and named our daughter after - I knew it was Divine Providence. God is never ironic!
However, we hadn't purchased a place yet, and in the following weeks virtually everything available in our price range disappeared. As the packing intensified, our prospects grew thinner. Our closing date crept closer, the baby belly grew larger, and our novenas grew more persistent. Rental options were non-existent, and the hotels cost a fortune. We had four kids with one on the way and no house to move into.
We literally went door-to-door asking people if they'd be willing to sell their house to us. One particular house was located next to my parents. We knocked on her door and asked if she would consider selling. Believe it or not, the neighbor agreed to sell us her house, and things got lined up with a bank. We were four weeks away from our closing date and seven months pregnant when the neighbor called to say she changed her mind! Maybe that home wasn't the Lord's will for us.
Frazzled, I fell to my knees beside our bed and prayed, "I can't take it anymore, Lord. We must have a sign showing us where we are supposed to be within three days."
Three days later, my grandmother came over and brought me a novena card with an image of St. Faustina on it. Unbeknownst to both of us, it happened to be Oct. 5, the Feast of St. Faustina, Apostle of Divine Mercy. We desperately needed some mercy!
The following morning, our son Max came into our bedroom with yet a different St. Faustina holy card "asking for graces in special needs." He handed it to me, and I realized we were being prompted to trust more.
Tom and I prayed these novenas with the family and continued to look at houses only to find absolutely nothing. Our closing date was a week away, and I was due in a month. Our belongings sat in a storage facility, and we were living out of backpacks, waiting, praying, trying to trust. To say tensions were high would be an understatement!
Finally, on Friday, Oct. 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we packed our kids up and went to morning Mass. We had nothing left in us but to sit before the Eucharist begging. The priest's homily was about the Rosary "changing the winds" and changing hearts in the Battle of Lepanto. He urged the congregation to keep persisting and praying the Rosary. The rest of that day something inside me kept insisting that if the Rosary could change the tide of an enormous battle, then surely the Rosary could change our circumstances, too!
With renewed trust in God's Providence, we called up the neighbor of my parents and asked her to reconsider. Tom offered a little more than our original price. After he hung up, we spent the rest of the day praying six Rosaries. It was part of a rush Rosary novena. Yes, we prayed nine Rosaries for a change of heart. Two days later, when we finished the ninth Rosary, the neighbor called us back accepting our offer! Saint Faustina had prompted us to trust. She led us straight to Our Lady, and then a miracle happened. Truly no battle is too small or unworthy of the power of the Rosary!
A house in Kingston, New York, on the same block as a tattoo parlor and "safe-disposal" heroin dumpsters - that wasn't a place to raise a growing family. But news of our fifth child coming motivated my husband, Tom, to realize that we needed a home in a cleaner neighborhood -especially since our older children were learning how to read and the graffiti-covered buildings posed a literary shock.
For these reasons, you can only imagine our surprise when our home sold in four days flat! I'm a lover of spiritual consolations, so when the house sold on St. Philomena's feast day - the saint whom we honored at our wedding and named our daughter after - I knew it was Divine Providence. God is never ironic!
However, we hadn't purchased a place yet, and in the following weeks virtually everything available in our price range disappeared. As the packing intensified, our prospects grew thinner. Our closing date crept closer, the baby belly grew larger, and our novenas grew more persistent. Rental options were non-existent, and the hotels cost a fortune. We had four kids with one on the way and no house to move into.
We literally went door-to-door asking people if they'd be willing to sell their house to us. One particular house was located next to my parents. We knocked on her door and asked if she would consider selling. Believe it or not, the neighbor agreed to sell us her house, and things got lined up with a bank. We were four weeks away from our closing date and seven months pregnant when the neighbor called to say she changed her mind! Maybe that home wasn't the Lord's will for us.
Frazzled, I fell to my knees beside our bed and prayed, "I can't take it anymore, Lord. We must have a sign showing us where we are supposed to be within three days."
Three days later, my grandmother came over and brought me a novena card with an image of St. Faustina on it. Unbeknownst to both of us, it happened to be Oct. 5, the Feast of St. Faustina, Apostle of Divine Mercy. We desperately needed some mercy!
The following morning, our son Max came into our bedroom with yet a different St. Faustina holy card "asking for graces in special needs." He handed it to me, and I realized we were being prompted to trust more.
Tom and I prayed these novenas with the family and continued to look at houses only to find absolutely nothing. Our closing date was a week away, and I was due in a month. Our belongings sat in a storage facility, and we were living out of backpacks, waiting, praying, trying to trust. To say tensions were high would be an understatement!
Finally, on Friday, Oct. 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we packed our kids up and went to morning Mass. We had nothing left in us but to sit before the Eucharist begging. The priest's homily was about the Rosary "changing the winds" and changing hearts in the Battle of Lepanto. He urged the congregation to keep persisting and praying the Rosary. The rest of that day something inside me kept insisting that if the Rosary could change the tide of an enormous battle, then surely the Rosary could change our circumstances, too!
With renewed trust in God's Providence, we called up the neighbor of my parents and asked her to reconsider. Tom offered a little more than our original price. After he hung up, we spent the rest of the day praying six Rosaries. It was part of a rush Rosary novena. Yes, we prayed nine Rosaries for a change of heart. Two days later, when we finished the ninth Rosary, the neighbor called us back accepting our offer! Saint Faustina had prompted us to trust. She led us straight to Our Lady, and then a miracle happened. Truly no battle is too small or unworthy of the power of the Rosary!
BCBB