“I heard God say, “Go for it” (II)

Kimberley's parents, who were non-believers, chose not to have their daughter baptized. Having had the opportunity to visit Lourdes, Kimberley, touched by the Virgin Mary, asked to be baptized, but her parents were opposed to it.

The following year, Kimberley returned to Lourdes, where Mary came to anchor her faith: “Looking at the Virgin Mary, I felt a total sense of peace, a complete absence of doubt." On her return, she asked to be baptized again, but was refused. During the feast of the Epiphany in the 11th grade, she heard an inner voice: “In the depths of my heart, I heard the Lord say to me: 'Go for it!' At the end of mass, I went to see the priest to ask for baptism. My parents didn't take it too well, but I knew that God was with me."

A few months later, the high-school student returned to Lourdes for a third time: “It was the day before my baptism. I brought back some water from Lourdes and poured a few drops into the baptismal water,” she recounts, still moved. That was on June 10, 2018.

Since then, Kim, as she likes to be called, has continued her journey of faith and discovered doubt: “Lately, I've had a lot of doubts, but I've never questioned the existence, or the presence of Mary. Even when I no longer 'felt' God, when I felt as if I were crossing the desert, Mary was there like a pillar impossible to uproot. Mary always brings me back to what's essential: she constantly brings me back to God."
As Kimberley readily admits, Mary is more than a mother: "When things aren't going well, all I have to do is look at Mary and I feel like she's holding me in her arms." Kim maintains this closeness to Mary on a daily basis by praying the rosary - “If Mary asks us to pray to her through the rosary, we don't need to ask ourselves why, we should just do it” - but also the Hail Holy Queen: “When I hear it, I always become emotional, because this hymn really pays tribute to the beauty of Mary.” 

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