It was the Holy Spirit

By Terry Polakovic

So, what inspired you to start ENDOW? I get this question fairly frequently, both from people who are actually interested and from those who are not. The truth is, it was the Holy Spirit. Even though it is certainly an option, it just isn’t easy to say “no” to the Holy Spirit.

Eight years ago, I knew there were a few things in my life that could use some tweaking, but I didn’t necessarily think I needed an entire overhaul. The Holy Spirit thought differently. Out of nowhere, He started introducing all of these new people into my life. I was a bit uncomfortable at first because they spoke a completely different language. Their conversations revolved around Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, the “New Feminism”, and a woman’s conference that had been held in Beijing. At the time I remember thinking how appropriate that was, since all of these concepts seemed like Chinese to me.

However, I was drawn into these conversations in a way that I had never been drawn to anything before. As an avid reader, I could recognize a good book when I saw one. Unexpectedly, however, my literary tastes started changing. Even the most riveting novel didn’t compare to the writings of Pope John Paul II. There was so much to read and I just couldn’t read fast enough. I started looking at every single thing differently.

By God’s grace, the same thing was happening to a couple of the women whom I had only recently met. That is the goodness of God; He sends you exactly what you need. I needed people who were being transformed in the same way I was. It would have been too frightening for me to go through it alone.

The three of us didn’t know very much, but we knew that what we were experiencing was real. We wanted to share it with other women, and we were just naïve enough to think we could. There is a saying, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” That is what He did for us. Again, thanks be to God. He sent all of the right people – an excellent Archbishop, the Religious Sisters of Mercy and literally thousands of women who were as hungry as we were. He sent us great authors, a great staff, and lots of good counsel. There is something beautiful about being a little bit clueless. You have to depend on other people. I am not saying it has all been easy, but every bit of it has been worth it.

As I said earlier, each one of us has the option of saying “no” to the Holy Spirit, but I wouldn’t recommend it. My life today is so much better than I could have ever imagined. I will be forever grateful that He thought me worthy of this gift called ENDOW.