Authors note: A few weeks ago I started to write a serious piece on prenatal testing and kids with disabilities. I had a great vision for it, but I won’t post something serious that’s not well thought out, – and these days with my mushy pregnancy brain, nothing is well thought out – so I move to some lighter topics.
St. Joseph’s feast day – solemnity, actually – was last week. I had been very much looking forward to it. One reason is we were having a big feast with all the families from my mom’s group, which was definitely fun. But as his feast approached, I had some serious requests for his intercession, and nine days before March 19th we started a novena to him.
Now, I have had a deeper love for St. Joseph since I read John Paul II’s “Redemptoris Custos” in college. I had prayed a novena to him after college and I got offered the job in Denver the day I finished that novena. My husband is a quiet, hardworking woodworker who took St. Joseph as his confirmation saint. He is currently in the residential remodeling business but wants to focus more on woodworking.
So, we prayed the novena for 3 things: to sell a table he had built (which we had been trying to sell for almost 2 months), to grow his business, and to find a new house for us with shop space to grow his business in. Since he is the patron saint of woodworkers, house hunters, families, and happy deaths (hopefully that last one is a ways off), we felt he was the perfect person to ask for some help!
From the time we started the novena, we found a house, put an offer on it, and on St. Joseph’s feast day we received the counter offer which a day later we accepted. Our new house will have 4 bedrooms for our growing family and a 1200 square foot shop in the back yard for my husband to work out of. It had been on the market for several months, and I believe it was just waiting for us to find it!
Also, we had been in touch with several people over the last two months about the table he had built, but on St. Joseph’s feast day a woman contacted us who ended up buying it today, almost a week later. He now has three more tables to build, and we haven’t even put up the rest of his work on Etsy yet!
Nathan is trying to keep up with his busy workload, but we are overjoyed and thankful that God has seen it fit to answer our requests. It has given me a little insight into petitions, particularly into how they may be answered.
I know a lot of times when I pray for something, it’s more like my son Timothy who says, “I want this, and I want it NOW!” Patience is a hard thing to teach a two year old. And a twenty-eight year old, I guess. Sometimes when we think our prayers aren’t heard, it’s just because it’s not time for them to be answered. The table didn’t sell on his feast like I was hoping, but the pieces were put in place for it to sell at a later time. Sometimes things have to fall in place before we can see the results, and God can be working through people before we even know what’s happening. Like a good parent, God wants to give us things that are good for us, but only when we need them, and when it’s the right time. And sometimes it helps to have the right people asking on your behalf. I’m thankful, though, that this time I could see the prayers being answered and worked out right in front of me. To God be the glory that he provides for his children! Thank you St. Joseph for your faithful and powerful intercession!
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