My own life did not take on a deep spiritual dimension until I was pregnant with my fourth child. But, once I turned seriously to prayer and saw the results, I became hooked. It began when my husband Mark lost his job. For the first time we consciously put our lives in God’s hands. Whenever Mark was turned down, our prayers gave us peace and certainty that it just wasn’t God’s will for us. When a solid job offer did finally come, it was from a person who had heard about Mark from someone else. He had not even applied! Surely, God had taken care of everything.
We put our house up for sale, but had to move out of state for the job before it sold and we had to rent it out. The renters trashed it and real estate agents told us it would never sell in that condition. Being so far away, we felt helpless. Mark was concerned that we might face foreclosure. Around this time, I read that St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless causes. Surely our situation was hopeless! Neither of us had ever prayed a novena before, but in desperation, we decided we had nothing to lose.