Someone Above Picked Chris & Kimmy Out For Each Other
Neither Chris nor Kimmy saw online dating as a venue likely to work for them. But both saw themselves as faithful Catholics who wanted to live out their lives with someone who would aid them in getting to heaven and felt they had to try unconventional options.
“I thought it wasn’t for me,” 30-year-old Kimmy said with regards to online dating. “I was concerned about whether it was safe.” Kimmy had an aunt who encouraged her to try it, telling her niece that sometimes God wants to see you’re trying. It was Kimmy’s aunt who sought out an online venue, found CatholicMatch and in effect said “you’re doing this.”
Chris had similar doubts. “I was hesitant—skeptical even—that I would work for me,” the 32-year-old resident of Pittsburgh told CatholicMatch.
In the end, he decided that if he was going to give this online thing a chance he was going to do it the right way. “I came to believe that anybody with the courage to identify himself or herself to the world as a Catholic single was open to allowing God to do great things with their lives.”
Great things take time to develop and that was the case with Chris & Kimmy. They corresponded online for three months before meeting face-to-face, even though she also lives in Pittsburgh. Kimmy’s concern for the safety of online dating led her to be cautious about meeting anyone face-to-face, but Chris found the right balance of patience and persistence.
Kimmy's "infectious enthusiasm" and depth of faith made Chris believe she was the one.
The big reason Chris stayed patient was what he saw in Kimmy. He’d even hesitated to contact her on CatholicMatch because her profile seemed to good to be true. It was only after he woke up one morning with her face as the first thing he thought of, that he messaged her and a little prudence on her part wasn’t going to dissuade him.
“She turned down my offer of a date no fewer than two times,” Chris recalled. “Or it wasn’t that she turned me down. She said ‘maybe’ or ‘hopefully.' That discretion and discernment attracted me to her even more.”
The first time she met Chris, Kimmy knew he was the one, but she wasn't ready to believe it.
Their first date came at Mad Mex’s, a restaurant in Pittsburgh’s North Hills area and both had electric responses to each other. “As soon as I walked in my jaw dropped,” Kimmy told CatholicMatch. “I knew right away, but didn’t want to believe it.”
For his part, Chris found Kimmy’s genuineness to be even more real in person than it had been on her profile and as they got to know each other, her spiritual depth stood out more and more.
“I was shocked to learn this self-described fitness nut did not own an iPod,” Chris said. “When I asked what she does to survive the mental lull that comes with working out she said simply ‘I pray.’ I knew I was where God wanted me to be.”
Their love for each other only grew with the passage of time. “He makes me laugh and he makes me happier than I’ve ever been,” Kimmy said, recalling how she was never as excited for a date as she was knowing Chris was on his way to pick her up. Chris added that Kimmy’s infectious enthusiasm makes it “impossible for her not to brighten the day of everyone she encounters.”
This past May they were back where it all began, at Mad Mex’s in the North Hills. On that first date, Chris had given Kimmy a pair of Penn State pom-on gloves, in honor of her past as a PSU cheerleader. When they got back to the car after this return date to Mad Mex’s, Chris told Kimmy he had something in the glove compartment for her. It was a pair of Pitt gloves. That’s not something you customarily give a Penn State fan or alum, but Chris was a Pitt fan so Kimmy, in his words, “tried to fake her excitement or appreciation at first.” But after she pulled the left-hand glove out of the console, there was an engagement ring waiting. “It seemed like the perfect way to offer my hand in marriage,” Chris said.
Chris and Kimmy are preparing for their wedding next April, as they continue live and work in Pittsburgh, he in banking and she in health care sales. Their happiness didn’t come without a struggle. Chris spoke of the challenges in discerning God’s will and the impossibility of serving two masters, as Christ warns of in the Gospel. “I came to the realization that he created me to love him, know him and serve him,” he told CatholicMatch. “His guidance and direction led me to the perfect teammate in Kimmy.”
Kimmy sees the hand of someone else in Heaven pulling a few strings on her behalf. Her father passed away six years ago and in Chris she sees not just the qualities of her dad, but even his mannerisms. “I never thought I’d find someone like Chris,” she said. “I believe my dad picked him out.”
Kimmy, a former Penn State cheeleader, got her engagement ring on a Pitt pom-pom.
