Laura-Anne Smid
I didn’t really know what love was until I was 19.
To be frank, my heart often didn’t get what it needed growing up. And even though I grew up in a Catholic home and felt in my gut that God was real, I wasn’t really invested in my faith. Rule following, sure, to stay out of trouble. A relationship with Jesus? I don’t know if I’d ever heard that phrase as a kid.
When I went to a Christian university straight out of high school — still feeling the sting of isolation that came from time away from school healing from a car accident prior to senior year — it came as a surprise to hear all these new people talking about faith in a way I’d never understood it before. It was different, more personal. Intimate, even.
But I quickly found myself getting what I thought were all those things with my new boyfriend halfway through first year. He made me feel special, bringing me a rose on our first date and making me laugh all the time, but, most of all, he made me feel seen. After all that time alone in high school, lying on the couch with a concussion and other injuries, feeling like I didn’t matter — I felt like I finally did.
The problem was that I didn’t know how to express my heart with him. Using your words to connect wasn’t the norm in my house, so I did my best. But my best happened to take after what my body was longing for; an all-consuming, being completely seen & known kind of love.
After a summer of navigating long distance and the intense physical reunions that happened when we saw each other, that gut feeling that something was wrong about the way things were going grew. I knew we weren’t the right fit and what we were doing together made me feel… icky. No amount of showers made me feel clean.
A few weeks after we broke up I found myself watching him laugh with his friends while on a leadership retreat with our school. If I ended it, shouldn’t I be the one feeling carefree again? All I could do was shudder when memories of what we’d done together came to mind.
Tears came hot and fast during a worship session one morning that weekend after seeing him again. The next moment the burden I felt lifted; I laughed and enjoyed that beautiful sunny day unlike any other in my life.
That evening, during another worship session in a giant tent with everyone, it started raining. Big fat raindrops hit the canvas roof, an absolute downpour out of nowhere, and the overwhelming sense in my heart was that this rain was for me. A cleansing rain, Jesus telling me that He knew what I’d done and loved me all the more knowing these intimate details of my life — He died to wash me of my sins and be connected with me. I knew the next step as a Catholic was confession, but I already felt understood, known, and deeply loved; my relationship with Jesus had truly begun.
It’s been almost 12 years since that day. My pursuit of love and learning all about it has brought me to almost as long a career in Catholic wedding photography, an incomparable school of sacrificial love. This journey prepared me to meet my husband and share this love with everyone I encounter; on my best days, of course. I’m still learning.