My Rosary Story

I struggled with infertility at the beginning of our marriage, and man when I tell you I tried everything... we were at the point in our journey where I was was beginning to think we just weren’t meant to have kids. It was then that I began to turn to Jesus in prayer specifically asking for Him to heal my body and make it capable of conception and pregnancy. I had been praying for this healing in my daily prayer and especially through the Eucharist, and had been asking Him to show me where to go from here and what to try next when I got word of a 54-day novena that was about to begin. Ironic timing? I think not... For those of you not familiar with this concept, a novena is a prayer that is prayed every day for 9 days typically with a specific intention in mind, so this 54-day novena is like a mega-novena of 6 regular novenas back-to-back basically. For this specific novena, the prayer that was supposed to be said each day was a rosary and two additional prayers asking our Blessed Mother for her intercession. And the idea was to pick one big intention. So you know what I was picking... dear sweet Mother Mary, please please please intercede for me and ask your Son to give us a baby!!! Ironically this was around the time we also gave up on really “trying” to conceive... I tossed the ovulation test strips, I stopped tracking... all of it, I was tired of it and I decided to put all of my eggs in this novena basket... no egg/ovulation pun intended.

Now let me stop and give you some background, I had maybe prayed the rosary 6 times in my life, 5 of which were forced rosaries in junior high Religion class and one was on an extra turbulent flight, so the thought of daily rosaries was intimidating to say the least. But did you know our Blessed Mother made some incredible promises to those who pray it daily? If you get a chance, google "the promises of the rosary"... 

So here we go, me and my rosary beads, heading into the next 54 days together. For the first 27 days you pray a prayer before and after the rosary in petition for your intention, and one of my favorite lines of the prayer was “As thou receivest my gift, so wilt thou receive my petition; from thy bounty thou wilt give me the favor I so earnestly and trustingly seek. I despair of nothing that I ask of thee.” I despair of nothing that I ask of thee- wow! Love it. Then, on the 27th day, the prayer switches to a prayer of thanksgiving and the line changes to.. “As thou receivest my gift, so wilt thou receive my thanksgiving; from thy bounty thou hast given me the favor I so earnestly and trustingly sought.”.... now I’ll never forget reading that line for the first time... I sat there, in silence for a moment and subconsciously moved my hand to my stomach.... "Could it be....?" I thought. "Could this have worked?" To spare you the details, as I would come to find out later, I had just conceived. 

One of the cool things about this specific novena is that the prayers call the person praying to visualize laying a rose at our Blessed Mother’s feet each time a Hail Mary is said during the rosary. How beautiful! There is no monotony or vain repetition when we think of each prayer as a gift to her just as that of a rose. I love to visualize this when praying the rosary now. It’s like we lay the roses at the feet of Our Lady, honoring her, and she in turn then lays our petition before her son, Jesus. Of course Jesus is the Healer and Giver of gifts, and through all of this, I was praying directly to Him asking for Him to heal my body... but why not also enlist the Christian who loved Him the most and is closest to His Heart to pray with us?

I now have a beautiful daughter whose middle name is Maren after our Blessed Mama and who I pray carries a deep love for Our Lady in her heart all the days of her life. I despaired not of what I asked of thee and thou has truly shown thyself, My Mother. My sweet Leigh Maren reminds me of this every day. 

If you’re new to the whole idea of Mary or struggling with building a connection to her, I’d challenge you to look into some of her apparitions- some are nearly undeniable... If they are nearly undeniable, then her messages for us are real, and if so, then man, whatever denomination you practice, Mary is still your Blessed Mama! You have a Mother in Heaven who is also a Queen! Jesus gave His mother to all who call themselves Christians. I’d also challenge you to just try the rosary... even if you don’t “feel” it or understand it. SHE will use it to reach out and connect to your heart and draw you into a deeper relationship with both her AND her Son. If you don’t know how, or just want to change it up a bit, check out the YouTube videos linked below for a real-time, pray-along video of the rosary with each set of mysteries, so all you have to do is follow along. The mysteries are all from the perspective of Mary and they are really beautiful and powerful. So call on her, ask her to intercede on your behalf, she WANTS to love you and give you what you ask of her. Run into her open arms like a little child running to their mama. Mama Mary, Queen of Peace, Queen of Heaven, and Blessed Queen Mother, pray for us.