My story

I am 42 years old and I come from Malacky. I am married and I have three children. I work as IT technician. I spent most of my leisure time with my family. Together with my wife and with a few friends we have founded a civic association called DaR (Children and Family) občianske združenie DaR - Deti a Rodina". We try to make the world at least a little better: we organise children and youth camps, mini-kindergarten, and maternal centre. I also like nature and – when I have enough time – I do bicycling.

You can search me everywhere, but you will find me only in the cross

I was 12 years old. I was hospitalized in Bratislava because of a hip joint fracture. I had undergone quite a complicated surgical operation and I had a plaster cast almost reaching my neck. During two months I was in the same position – lying on the back. The only comfort I had after two weeks was that I could turn on my broken leg, although I always needed to lean on something. My father came and asked me: “Does it hurt?” “Yes, a lot” “I would like to help you, but it is not in my power. The only thing you can do is to sacrifice all your pain to some good intention“. Here is the basis of my firm conviction that God is good. Not because of the fact that He let me have more fractures during my life, but because He sent me someone who walked along with me.

Yes, bones were my life issue. I was born with a fracture. Since then I had several fractures during all my childhood, every time I fell down. I spent a lot of time in hospitals. I suffered a lot. But I also saw other people suffering. It was for me great life experience, great learning experience. During this experience I understood that God is always with me and He never abandons me. This attitude of praise became (and it is continuously becoming) my expression of love towards God.

God manifested Himself to me. He is continuously manifesting Himself to me through people who are close to me and who bring me reports of His love and goodness. Since I was young I know that God is present in the communities who search Him with an open heart. I perceive the Church as a group of people who are connected not only through faith (i.e. conviction), but also through life (i.e. purely concrete relationships). A person with whom I don't share anything cannot be close to me. That’s why I have always built and supported small communities. A community is a place where God is present in a peculiar and unrepeatable way. It is the place that always helped me get rid of hypocrisy and phariseism. It is the place where I am always learning to open my heart to God, to give and receive at the same time. Last but not least, especially here in the community I know that I am not alone.

Prayer is the place where I feel that my relationship with God is built. In the mind of everybody there is an on-going silent dialogue. Sometimes I manage to direct such dialogue right towards Jesus. Sometimes I fail in doing this. In these cases I compensate my failure by uttering the Lord's Prayer or sometimes even just a couple of short sentences. Sometimes I hear words from the Scriptures. They resonate in my mind for a while. When all attempts fail, the Psalms are always a safe haven for my prayer time. I listen to Gospel music – notably in the morning. The new day immediately gets a different dimension.

I think one of the attitudes towards Jesus that a Christian cannot neglect is gratitude. It is beautiful to see all the wonders and all the gifts I received through his love. That’s why gratitude is a spontaneous element of my prayer. And I am teaching my children to do the same.

I grew up in a Catholic environment. There are things that belong to the life of the Church. These things are often not matching the real life of today’s people. Well, in my childhood I consider these things as obvious. The problem occurred when my interior living sensations hurt against the habitual and traditional “faith” (a type of faith which represented a sort of standard in the environment where I used to live). When I was in my adolescent years, I had a couple of bad experiences with priests who were far away from the example of the loving Christ. These deceptions had a really bad effect on me. I almost lost what had previously flourished inside me. These circumstances brought me to reflect about the root of my faith. What is the root of my faith? What should be the root of my faith? Gradually the Lord helped me get rid of the image of God as a machine. I better explain what I mean: you insert a coin (a prayer) and then a miracle happens. I had several crises. I tried to find several reference points. It seemed I found them but God was always taking them back. At the end of such a hard journey, from the fog of Sunday morning, an empty tomb starts to appear. And you hear the testimony of some simple women and men, sons and daughters of Israel.

I thank the Lord because he makes me feel His love even out of the Cross. I started to date my then girlfriend, today wife, Katka. After some months of our relationship we started to plan our future together. Our perspectives concerning house and living were uncertain. At that time, there were no mortgages. We didn’t have any cash to buy a house. We both longed for a house. At first sight our situation seemed unsolvable. One Christian then told me:

"You don’t know where are you going to live? Have confidence in God. I did have confidence and today we have a flat

So I trusted in God. I was confident He will help us. And the answer came little later. One day my brother called me. He found an ad in the newspapers. Not far from us in the region of Záhorie somebody was selling an old house at a very good price. We borrowed money and we bought that house. With the help of some friends we reconstructed it. In one year we got married and we went to live in our new house.

For me it is a miracle. It is one of the many miracles that happen in our lives.

Since then, I know that God is interested in my needs and He wants to hear about them. I am convinced that God speaks to me every time and everywhere. My biggest concern is: am I really listening to Him? I am very often unable to meet Him. I often lack good will or time. Nevertheless, there are places where it is impossible not to hear His voice. They are those beautiful moments spent with my family, with my wife and kids. They are those beautiful moments spent in the temple of His nature. They are those beautiful moments in which some brothers or sisters tell me a word, or send me an SMS, that goes straight into my heart. Sometimes I need to be alone. When I am alone I often get the light which leads me to take decisions in my life.

Fatherhood is a great gift. It is participation in God's plan of creation. Through the gifts that God gave me and through the numerous events of my life I realised that God calls me to follow this road.

It is not easy to live this life as a testimony in an epoch in which the concept of family is loosing its value. As a father, I understood that within the family I can develop my baptismal priesthood. As a father I am responsible for the development of my family as a “little Church”. It is something projected not only in the Church but also in the society as a whole. At the same time it is an experience of my own weakness. It is the proof that we need each other. Family life is team-work. Every single member decides whether to join or not. It is good when parents encourage their children. Sometimes even parents need encouraging words. And it is wonderful when parents receive encouraging words from their children. I thank God so much for such moments.

If you are looking for a personal relationship with God, start with desire. God knows our desires and answers to them. Of course He answers. It is normal. He wants to be sure that we really desire to be in touch with Him. He wants to be sure that we are not reciting like in a theatre. He wants to be sure that we are not just asking Him to give us success, health, or salvation in itself... If He sees that we are really serious, He will certainly answer. We also have to get rid of our prejudices and schemes. The Bible says “my ways are not your ways”. God can manifest in an unexpected way or even in a way I did not wish. Sometimes it is hard to accept the way He chose. But maybe after years we will be able to say: “Blessed is the name of the Lord who led me through this way”.