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James Fitzgerald, aged 32 and a member of the Cor Et Lumen Christi Community, shares how the Lord told him to stop serial dating so he could discover who he was in Christ
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I had been in different relationships ever since I can remember. I dated girls as a young guy at school. After my conversion (Baptism in the Spirit) at 17, I went out with girls from my prayer group and then carried on dating when I went to college. It was normal and expected in my school and social circle to be in a relationship and I never questioned this. Only the length varied – some relationships lasted several months, some only a few weeks. All that my conversion initially changed was that now I went out with girls who were Christians like me and I would “pray about it”! Thus when I was in college and my relationship ended, I simply prayed about whom I should go out with next. I was looking around and praying. Then one day in my prayer time I felt God spoke to me very directly, and said: “James I want you to make a commitment, to be ‘celibate’ for one month.” I agreed. After a month I prayed again and I said: “Who do you want me to be with now?” I felt the Lord asking me to be single for four months.” So after four months I prayed again “Who have you got for me?“ This time I felt He said: “I want you to make a one year commitment to be single and in that time not to look for any relationships.” I asked why and I heard it very clearly – that in that time He would work on my heart and teach me what it meant to be a man for Him. That He would work on my understanding of who I was – my identity in Him, and on my understanding of what it meant to relate to others as my brothers and sisters. Over that year, my whole view of other people changed. For the first time I started to see girls not only as possible girlfriend candidates but as my sisters in Christ. This allowed friendships to deepen. It also set me free from pressures to be in a relationship, especially from my family. They would always be saying to me “come on James, you have to find a girlfriend - what’s the matter with you?” But I felt no pressure any more because I knew I was doing what the Lord wanted. At the end of that one-year commitment I was in a completely different place, spiritually and emotionally. I prayed again, but this time it was: “Lord, I am not praying now for a relationship, I am just entrusting my life to you”. My prayer life had deepened and I no longer felt any need to be ‘dating’. As it happened I was single then for another seven years. I always believed that God ultimately wanted me to be married and to be a father, and that this was my heart’s desire. I felt completely free knowing that God’s plans would unfold for me at the right time. It was only when I felt ready to be married that I felt that I should start looking into relationships again. I felt my view of relationships had changed and I understood that it wasn’t God’s will to be just going out with people for the sake of it, if there was no serious future in it and the possibility of marriage. My relationship with Anna came after these seven years. We were both in the Community, we became good friends and our friendship deepened. Then I fell in love with her and realised that she had loved me for several years. - Was it different from the previous relationships? Completely. I had never been in love with anybody else in the way I was in love with Anna. I knew that God was there. In 2001 James married Anna, a fellow member of the Cor et Lumen Christi Community. They are now blessed with three daughters.
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