What I am about to share is one third of my vocation story in entering the priesthood of Jesus Christ. I was born July 1988 into a faithful Catholic family. My family, dad, mom, and my older brother, all lived in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. We grew up praying the rosary together on a regular basis, attended Sunday Mass together along with Holy Days of Obligation, and daily Mass on Wednesday evenings.

As I grew a few years older, at the age of 3, my parents became concerned that maybe something was wrong with my speech. I was tested and their fears were confirmed; I was born with a speech impediment, so at the ripe young age of 4 years old I started speech therapy classes at a nearby university, Central Missouri State University, now known as University of Central Missouri, in Warrensburg, Missouri.

As time moved forward with my speech classes, it became evident that I was not progressing as I should have been. Even with going to classes three days a week at the university 45 minutes from home and doing homework with my mom in the days between classes, over the course of 2 years, I had not advanced to where I needed to be. The therapists recommended to my parents more and intense speech therapy for me.

During this same time, my mom started to take life in a different direction for herself because of life circumstances. My older brother was now a teenager, and he was highly involved with sports and other extracurricular activities. My dad worked full time as an optometrist, and mom was dad’s part-time secretary for a short time. Mom was also a stay at home mom: she cooked all meals, cleaned the house, the dishes, the laundry, etc. She also grew up and remains to this day a devout Catholic. She grew up in Colombia, South America, and because her family home was next door to a convent her next door neighbors were nuns. She has always had a deep prayer life, and like St. Teresa of Avila, she was very direct, some might even say, blunt with God in her prayers. During this time of life in which she was taking on many different roles, she simply could not find the time to get everything done, even after pleading to God for help. So she decided to create her own time by not going to sleep — for three days!

Day Three was the day to drive to my speech therapy class. I was six years old by this point and while sitting in the front seat, I listened to some classic Disney books on audio cassette tape through the car speakers that would give a little chime to indicate it’s time to turn the page. My mom was driving down the highway and she started feeling very sleepy and started to pray to our Lord, “My God, I am so very tired. I am trying to do everything in life you have laid upon me. I have my baby with me in the front seat. Please do not let me fall asleep.” But fall asleep my mother did.

When my mother fell asleep, many things happened at once. First, we drifted into the grassy median that divided the highway from the opposing traffic. My mother also felt the wings of her Guardian Angel, a firm yet gentle grip, clasp over her hands on the steering wheel. She saw God the Father in the visor above her head, and she has always described Him in the following manner, “Imagine any picture you have seen of our Lord Christ, but with white hair that’s whiter than any snow-capped mountain, with wrinkles in the right spots for an elderly man.” Mom felt this enormous radiance of peace emanating from God the Father, and heard Him say, “Everything will be alright. I’m proud of what you are doing. Your little boy will be ok.” In that exact moment, I, the 6 year old boy in the front seat with a dramatic speech impediment that had not advanced by much over 2 years in speech therapy, started speaking clearly for the first time in my life. I said, “Mom, mom, you fell asleep! Mom, mom, we’re in the middle of the highway! Mom!” While all of the above was happening, we ended up doing eight full rotations in our van in the grassy median. Our van never flipped over, but we did eight full circles. I remember the grass whirling around us like we were in the middle of a tornado.

When we finally stopped spinning, Mom got her bearings and drove and parked on the shoulder of the highway in the direction for us to continue toward my speech therapy class. She got out of the car and started to walk around behind our parked van, taking in all that just happened and also shaking off her tiredness. A thin lady with neck length, jet black hair in a small, super sky blue car (if I had to guess, it was a 1980s style of a Toyota Corolla) parked behind my mom, leaving space in between the vehicles so they could stand and talk.

The lady got out of her car and asked my mom, “Are you alright? I saw you drive off the highway into the median. Is everything ok?” My mom was still shaking from the whole experience, but she replied, “I’m doing ok.” The lady responded, “Look, take the time you need, and I’ll wait here with you. Once you feel ready, go back to your car and drive onto the highway, and I’ll drive behind you to make sure you are safe.” Mom took about 15 minutes to recuperate, then she got back into our van, pulled onto the highway again, with the lady following behind us in her car. After about 1–2 miles of driving down the highway, my mom asked me, “Son, do you see the lady with her light blue car behind us?” My mom could not see her in the rearview mirror. Being 6 years old and seated in the front seat, it was easy for me to turn around and look out the back window of our van for the lady. I never saw her.

Mom and I eventually made it to my speech therapy class at CSMU. People could tell something had happened because my mom was ghostly white, and I was bouncing up and down like 6 year boys can, talking to people clearly. I was dumbfounding everyone in the vicinity who knew me because if you remember, they said I was going to have to do more intense speech therapy, yet now I was speaking clearly. People started asking my mom what happened, and so my mother tells the whole story of our recent experience on the road. Some people who were passing by stopped walking as they heard tidbits of the story and came to the growing group of people as my mom continued to tell the story. There was one gentleman in particular, who did this, that has always stuck out in my memory. As my mother finished retelling our whole story and me finally speaking clearly for the first time in my life, that gentleman, who was going to pass by, but came over to listen said, “That’s it. I grew up Catholic, but I married my wife and eventually became a Lutheran. After hearing that story, I’m going back to the Catholic Church.” As I like to say to people, I had my first convert/revert when I was 6 years old.

Fast forward now to 6th grade. I’m 12 years old now. It was at this point in life that I started to take more seriously what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said it in that manner, “take more seriously” because there was a time when I was a small child that I wanted to be a Native American when I grew up. Once I realized that becoming a Native American is not really something you can just sign up for, I started to examine what my possibilities were. I realized, with God performing a miracle on me in essentially giving me my voice, there was nothing I could ever do that would equate as a “Thank You” to God for the gift of my voice. As I thought more, I did think, “If there ever was a way for me to say “thank you” to God for giving me my voice, it would be by becoming one of His priests.”

Reflecting on this extraordinary life experience, my mother and I have accepted that she felt the wings of her Guardian Angel on the steering wheel, she saw God the Father, the skinny lady with the long jet black hair and the small sky blue car was my Guardian Angel, and the truth of this lady’s car being sky blue (and when I say sky blue, I mean as blue or more blue than an exceptional spring day sky blue) I interpret it to mean that it was Our Lady who took care of us that day, sending our Guardian Angels to be extra hands on. I have always had a deep love for Our Lady, whom I usually call Mother Mary, because I know she’ll always take care of this priest, since she clearly has, ever since I was a small boy, just as she did with her own beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.