Faith, Life, and Love: The Thibodeaux Journey
The Thibodeaux Journey shows how trust, Catholic faith, and NFP guided their marriage and how they embraced God’s design for faith, life and love.
Finding Faith
Faith and Zach met on CatholicMatch. Just a few years ago, neither of them would have expected that. Raised in the Church of Christ, Faith became agnostic as a teen. Still, she was very pro-life and enjoyed reading online forums about life issues. She says, “That was my first brush with Catholicism because a lot of pro-life activists are Catholic.”
As she got older, she felt the Lord open her heart to practicing Christianity again but found her old church felt empty. Meanwhile, she kept watching Catholic videos, especially about issues like euthanasia and IVF. “Maybe the Lord is telling me I should look into this more deeply,” she remembers thinking. Attending a Mass, she was struck by its reverence and knew she’d found something real to explore. She joined RCIA and entered the Church that Easter.
Meanwhile, Zach grew up attending Catholic schools, though his family didn’t practice regularly. He experienced a reversion to Catholicism while studying political science at Yale University. For him too, Catholicism’s clear teachings on life rang true.
Valuing Life
Zach is visually impaired, which he says has made his life more difficult in some ways, better in others. He says, “You adapt to it. You always value the gift of life and not just say, ‘This person’s blind, so their life is going to be less than.’ Who are you to really say that? I’m very glad I’m alive… A lot of people don’t value life as much as they should.”
Once their paths crossed online, it didn’t take long for Faith and Zach to meet in person – or get married. “We went on a few dates and that was November of ‘23 and then got married in April,” they recall. Both knew they’d found a partner who put faith at the center of life.
The Thibodeauxs learned NFP during marriage prep. Faith describes: “I had no idea about ovulation… NFP gave me a sense of how my body worked and this design it has. That was very empowering and reassuring.”
Love in Difficulties
The newlyweds found themselves practicing NFP immediately, as Faith was diagnosed with a pseudoaneurysm in her heart requiring surgery. “NFP is very effective when you use it correctly,” they say. It “helped us prevent a pregnancy when there was a very serious need. Using what God has given us in the cycle effectively to do that was a huge blessing.”
Their parting word for others exploring NFP is to trust. “A lot of people have trust issues with the Church,” they say. “You can research and learn, but always think the Church has your best interests. It’s there to protect the word of God and you.”
Neither Faith nor Zach could have predicted that their paths would cross online, leading both back to the fullness of Catholic faith and to each other. With trust in God and a commitment to one another, they show that faith, life and love are beautifully intertwined.
Written by Savanna Duca. This article first appeared in Family Foundations magazine, a benefit for donors to the Couple to Couple League. For engaged couples, find CCL’s NFP for Marriage Prep here. Find CCL’s PeakDay STMethod for married couples here.