Recently, several St. Joseph School students participated in the Christ is Alive Essay Contest. The contest, sponsored by the Catholic Communication Center, provided a wonderful opportunity for SJS families to talk about times when they had experienced God in their lives. The prompt for this year’s contest was, “Describe a moment when you felt close to God.”
Although he was not selected as one of the finalists in the nation-wide contest, Sr. Jeanne’s Fourth Grade student, Alan Kulpa, wrote a beautiful essay. Thank you, Alan, for being a loving, caring, and brave young man. We appreciate your heartfelt story allowing us to see how God touched your family. The St. Joseph Community is very proud of you!
Alan’s Essay:
The moment that I felt God was with me was when my mom got very sick with cancer. She was very sad and even when she did not want to admit it, I knew she cried all the time. Her eyes were always sad and I could tell because she never cried before; she was always very happy. Because this was cancer she got really bad treatment that made her very sick all the time, I was scared because she was not feeling better, but every night before bedtime my mom and I prayed together and she always told me that I should pray to God and ask him to help us with the struggle. Then she hugged me and gave me lots of kisses.
In addition, my grandma was living with us because she was sick from cancer and we wanted to take care of her. She would stay with me when my mom was at the hospital. We used to make pierogies with my grandma all the time.
At the same time my dad couldn’t go to work most of the time because he was driving my mom to the hospital. Even though he was sad he spent as much time with me as possible; he still played soccer with me and drove me to my games. My sister was helping me with my school work. I kept asking him all the time about mom and when she is going to feel better. He always said soon and we just have to be patient and pray. I felt like God was giving my dad strength so he wouldn’t give up. We went to church together an prayed. Sometimes Sister Jeanne came to visit and prayed with us and my mom would feel better.
Suddenly, my grandma died; the doctors couldn’t help her. My mom was not feeling any better and she lost her hair; she was very skinny and weak all the time. I was afraid that my mom was going to die too, and I cried a lot. I asked my mom if she was going to die too, but she always told me that I should believe and be patient.
Undoubtedly this time of my life was very sad and it took a long time for my mom to feel better. She is healthy now, taking care of us, making pierogies like my grandma used to do. When we pray at night we always give thanks to God that he is with us, and that he gave me my mom back.
