We all are in need of healing. I want to tell you a story of suffering and healing; a story of how Scripture brought me back to God. Two years ago, my husband and I journeyed towards first-time parenthood blissfully unaware of the challenges bringing a child into the world could hold.

I am not the Catholic woman who has had it all together. I am the type of individual that holds too many opinions, who is too loud, feels too deeply, and is constantly trying to get this “faith thing” right. I think that before social media, I knew I was somewhat an outsider in general, but it was once I joined that I felt that thought was perpetuated even more -- and not just by me, but by others, as well.

Growing up, most of my Catholic experiences were with groups of people who looked like me and talked like me. I attended Spanish masses often, my youth groups were mostly Hispanic, and the Catholic school I attended was a mostly Hispanic and Black Community.

When I said my wedding vows, I didn’t know what relevance “in sickness and in health” would soon hold in my life. The morning of my wedding, I distinctly remember noticing stiffness in my fingers. It only lasted for a little bit and I didn’t dwell on it too long (Afterall, I had more important things going on that day.) But it was the first time I remember noticing anything different about my body…

I don’t know if the experience at that church was the origin of my religious obsessive-compulsive issues, but it has always stood out in my mind as a piece of the puzzle. I think I was born naturally inclined to seek control, and so a mixture of fear and a desire for control propelled my faith forward as I grew up.

When I graduated from college, I moved home with no job and no plans. I knew that I wanted to do a year of service but I didn’t know what exactly that meant for me. I applied to a service program and was given the choice between several different service sites working with all different populations.

I wanted close friends so badly because, as an only child, I never had a sister of my own. I had supportive family relationships and friendships, which more than made up for not having siblings. But, instead of receiving their love as a gift from God, all I could see was the hole left in my life by the sister I'd never had.

I knelt in the last pew of the little adoration chapel, reflecting on my Wednesday workday and trying to motivate myself to pray the Rosary when a middle-aged Hispanic woman entered. She shuffled past me, dropped to her knees in front of the monstrance and lifted her hands.

Dear sisters,

I was in second grade when I wrote down my first story. I remember it well, the feeling of the plush green carpet beneath my feet as I made my way into my father’s wood-paneled study. His massive leather-topped desk held my wide-ruled notebook paper and sharpened #2 pencil. I scooted the desk chair up as far as my eight-year-old legs could manage and I began my work. Thirty minutes later, it was done: a sketch and accompanying short story titled “The Adventures of Hamburgerman.”

As I cried in my bathroom, I told God how sick I am of fighting against my body. I told Him how exhausted I am of trying to love myself only to fail. I told Him how I didn’t understand how I was good even in my overweightness. I told Him how frustrated I was that I didn’t feel comfortable dressing in the clothes I wanted to.

I got out of the shower and stared at myself in the mirror once more. Suddenly, God said:
“You are so, so much more than the clothes you wear. There is so much more to you than that.”