Realizing the Magnitude of a Tiny Yes

Roxane Salonen shares how her gratitude was reignited after a recent chat with Dr. Scott Hahn, whose conversion story once changed the course of her life.  

I was newly married and feeling quite alone in the pew. Though my husband, who’d grown up Methodist, would come to Mass with me on occasion, he was constrained from full participation. 

“Is it always going to feel this way?” I thought one Sunday, kneeling for the Consecration while my husband remained sitting. A tear trickled down my cheek. I hadn’t anticipated the pain of not being fully united in faith with my beloved, and suddenly knew that the feeling likely would only grow with time.  

The conversion story that changed my life

I’d recently been introduced to Dr. Scott Hahn through a cassette-tape recording of his conversion story. A member of the Legion of Mary had given it to me after Mass one day. Though my college Newman Center experiences had kept me tethered to my Catholic faith, and I was committed to having a vibrant adult faith life, I sometimes questioned certain aspects of the Church.  

But hearing Hahn’s startling and unlikely conversion story yanked me from my uncertainty, causing me to see I’d been holding a sparkling jewel. Overtaken with gratitude, I wrote my parents a letter thanking them for passing on the gift of the Catholic faith. I didn’t want to unearth this treasure alone, however. I wanted my husband to experience it with me, and any children we might be blessed to have.  

Despite being a busy journalist still learning my craft, I couldn’t get enough of Scott and his wife, Kimberly. Each night after a long day of interviews and writing, I would hunker down with their books and taped talks, amazed anew at God’s goodness for including me in his beloved family. I now knew I’d been hauling this treasure chest around my whole life, not realizing I had the key to open it.  

The Hahns’ attractive zeal had caught hold of my heart, and I was all in.  

A conversation becomes an opportunity to recognize gratitude

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was asked to write an article promoting an event to ignite Eucharistic enthusiasm here in North Dakota. “You’ll want to interview Dr. Hahn, who is the keynote,” the diocesan event planner said. I couldn’t have imagined all those years ago, reading well into the night about the beautiful truth of Catholicism, that I’d someday have the chance to talk with the former Protestant minister who’d helped flip my vulnerable soul upside-down and set me on a firmer course.  

Indeed, if not for the Hahns, I likely wouldn’t be writing this article. The reality of the impact they’ve had on my life — and I realize I’m not alone by far — can’t be overstated. God might have found someone else to step in at the point I was considering stepping out, but I can’t know what might have happened, only what did. 

And what did happen led me to the moment of conversing with someone who’d once seemed as if from another world, but who I realized now was just another child, friend, and father caught by God’s holy fire. 

As we talked, I had to remind myself I wasn’t just listening to the radio; that this familiar voice was addressing me. Hearing my name, “Roxane,” helped keep me centered and in professional mode.  

Of all the feelings that came to me during my half-hour with Dr. Hahn, the deepest was gratitude, for it occurred to me anew that without the Hahns’ influence, I might not only not be Catholic, along with our family (my husband did convert a few years later), but I’d likely be much further from heaven. Wow! 

As we bantered, another thought overtook me: one person’s “yes” to God has the potential to affect millions of eternal consequences.  

When Scott was a college student at Marquette University, railing against the Church, he couldn’t have known the tidal wave he would send through Catholicism by his surprising pivot. But God knew.  

Consider the power of your "yes"

I want to turn it back on us, as ordinary, everyday Catholics. Have we considered the power of our little “yeses?” They might seem like tiny whispers reaching no one but the sleeping baby in the next room, or the rebellious teen who just really needs a hug, or the tired spouse desperate for assurance. But is that all they are? 

We may not know for certain, this side of the veil, how our “yeses” could affect the world’s trajectory, but God does.  

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Copyright 2024 Roxane Salonen
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