I said a 54 day Novena. Here’s what happened next.

It was a Wednesday night and I was sitting in a hospital room with my youngest daughter who was just shy of turning one. It was our fourth night in the hospital, but only the second with her. My two year old was in the same hospital with the same virus a few days prior. I was at a loss. I looked back at the last year of my life, the immeasurable pain, the fear, the hopelessness and I prayed the same prayer I had prayed hundreds of times before: “Please take this, Lord.”

I felt a surprising, but impossible to ignore message sink into my heart. One that the Lord had tried to deliver a few times before, but in the midst of trying to repair my own brokenness, I missed it. 

Say a 54 day novena. Make the rosary your cornerstone. You have to trust me. 

To be honest, I didn’t even really know what that entailed. Nonetheless, the message was clear and at this point, I couldn’t afford not to listen. I pulled out my phone, looked up the mysteries for that day and started praying. I cried, I held my sweet baby and I prayed. It was day 1 and I had no idea how much was about to change in the 53 days to follow. 

I was born and raised believing in God, but like so many of us, the world had its way with me more than once. What I didn’t realize, is every time I gave into the ways of the world, I would lose a small piece of myself. The self that God carefully designed long before I was born. After years of seeking attention from the wrong places, sin, infertility and an unwillingness to surrender, even though I constantly claimed I had, my brokenness brought me to my knees. I was in the throws of postpartum depression, I was holding onto a relationship from my past that was emotionally destroying me and I refused to forgive myself for the less than perfect moments I had in my younger years. I wanted to be the mother, the wife, the daughter, the sister and the friend that I knew I had the potential to be, but there were chains that felt unbreakable. So much so that I questioned if I could survive the darkness that had swallowed me. 

While this pain had finally demanded to be dealt with, I had an inner knowing that told me this was what I spent years praying for. While I wasn’t always living the way I knew I was meant to, I never stopped praying that God would use me, heal me and ultimately rescue me from the place I kept finding myself in. I could have never imagined that 54 days could change my life, but then again, it is God we’re talking about. 

I think that was the first blessing that came from the novena. Just starting. I was at my lowest, darkest place and God asked me to trust him. He asked me to choose him and I did. Every night, as I put my girls to sleep, I would pray the rosary. And every night I asked God to take anything that wasn’t of him and make me new. And more than that, I believed with everything in me that he could. It was bold, but I knew all God wanted in that moment was my boldness. I needed to stop trying to outrun my own brokenness and sit at his feet. 

When I started writing this, I thought I was going to make a list of all of the miracles that took place over those 54 days. And trust me, there were miracles, big and small. But it wasn’t about what God did around me, it was what he did within me. When I look back at where I was when I started my 54 day novena, I’m not the same person. I know that sounds dramatic and maybe even hard to believe, but I’m certain there was healing that took place while whispering the prayers that make up our holy rosary that I’ll never be able to fully explain. I had come to the end of myself, but Jesus met me there, took my hand and said, “let’s try it my way now”. 

The word that sums up my experience? Surrender. I learned that surrender isn’t just about laying down what is (the bad relationships, the vices, the sin), but it’s about lifting our hands even if. Even if we’re in the throws of anxiety and depression, even if our babies are sick, even if we see no way out, even if the enemy is trying to convince us that there is no way back to Jesus. There is always a way. We just have to pick a place and start. 

I believe that God knew I would need to be brought to my knees to realize that all I ever needed was him. I didn’t need the relationship from my past, I didn’t need the toxic validation, I didn’t need the anxiety medication I convinced myself I could never get off of and I didn’t need to hold onto my past mistakes to punish myself for a sin that he already bore as his own. I was fighting a battle that God had already won. 

Over the 54 days, some of the blessings came in a costume of pain. My husband started drinking more than what was manageable at the beginning of the novena and while I was confused at first, I now realize that sometimes God has to bring things to the surface so that we know what we must hand over. My husband hasn’t had a drink in months. 

On day 54 of the novena, I booked a tv segment where I talked about fashion trends, which is something I had been working towards. At first, I thought it was a sign that I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do. I mean, it was day 54 after all. But while planning for the segment, I became uncomfortable. I started to hear those gentle whispers in my ear that my purpose was not about helping women see their worth in clothes or accessories, but in Jesus. If I hadn’t booked that job, I wouldn’t have felt the discomfort that God needed me to feel in order to lay it down. I’ll be honest, I sent a few TV pitches after that, but I told God that if he didn’t want it for me, to let the emails go unanswered. And they did. Every single one of them.

But do you know what didn’t go unanswered? The email to my church asking to lead a Moms group. Do you know what provided me the most peace? Long days breathing life into my family through teaching, playing, cooking, bath times, bedtime stories and writing about topics that filled my soul. 

I asked God to reveal where he wasn’t. While that forced me to deal with some uncomfortable truths, He was shedding the parts of myself that didn’t serve him. He was doing what I prayed for in ways that he knew only I could understand.

When I finished the 54 day novena, my life wasn’t perfect. But it didn’t need to be because I had finally allowed God FULLY into my mess. He was always at the door, I just needed to invite him in. And once I did, I knew I could never live any other way. And that’s the miracle. That’s what changed my life. 

So if you’ve come to the end of yourself, ask God to meet you there. Maybe you’re about to start the 54 day journey back to the person you were always meant to be.