Cover Story - How Liz Ryan is finding joy in juggling life's vocations

“To discern our personal vocation, we have to realize that it is a calling from a friend, who is Jesus. When we give something to our friends, we give them the best we have. It will not necessarily be what is most expensive or hard to obtain, but what we know will make them happy.” (Pope Francis, Christus Vivit (Christ Lives))

Liz Ryan is one of those people who lights up a room with her ever-present smile and endless positivity. So much so that her exuberance makes some people suspicious. “What is it that you do that makes you happy all the time,” is a question Liz says she gets asked a lot.

Her response?

“It’s God. Not a big secret — knowing his joy is my joy.”

Like many people, Liz juggles a variety of responsibilities between her full-time
job as a dental assistant and office manager to her work as the Director of Religious Education (DRE) for two parishes to her shared role in her husband’s vocation to the diaconate.

Her calendar, along with her heart, is full, she says because she stays close to the Blessed Mother in prayer and embraces all different facets of her vocation — a life she never imagined.

“I actually always thought I’d go into religious life,” remembers Liz as she smiles
at the memory. Her mother, Susan Bodenberg-Schwartz, would load up Liz and her three brothers and make regular visits to the Sisters living at the St. Joseph Motherhouse (Nazareth) in Kalamazoo.

“I remember just loving being there — exploring the library and [I] told everyone in my family that was my path — to be a Sister.”

And as the saying goes, we plan and God laughs.

That all changed her senior year in high school when she met Jeff when they were both working at the Plainwell Coin Laundry.

“He actually made me kinda mad,” she said of their first meeting. “he was teasing me and I threw water at him.”

Jeff asked her out, and they’ve been together ever since, getting married in 1989
and welcoming their daughter Ashley in 1990.

Despite her joy, her faith walk hasn’t been without detours. When Liz and Jeff
were first married she admits to stepping away from the faith for a time.

Interestingly, Jeff, who was ordained to the diaconate in 2012, didn’t become Catholic until 2000.

“When Ashley turned six, there was something burning inside me that we needed to come back. Ashley and I were going to St. Therese of Lisieux (in Wayland) and we would gently nudge Jeff.”

As Liz and her young daughter went to St. Therese’s, she says she prayed everyday that Jeff would one day be called to join the Church.

She laughs, “When you pray for something and ask for something — God has a
bigger plan.”

“Next thing you know Jeff's coming into the Church and then called to the Diaconate.”

Our jobs, duties, commitments are one thing, but our vocation is another.

“My vocation has been first and foremost being a woman, wife, child of God — loving my husband and daughter (my extended family, son-inlaw, nephews, nieces, brothers, mom, aunt and cousin(s), great nephew and nieces, god-son),” says Liz. “One of the greatest moments in my life was becoming Jeff’s wife, working together to achieve all that we have in thanksgiving to God. Together we created Ashley who is our joy, and love: it’s true when they say a mother would do and has done everything she can in her life for her child(ren).”

And what’s it like to be the wife of an ordained deacon?

“As a deacon’s wife, we don’t change, I find the people around you change. I can’t tell you how many times when he was first ordained that people were calling me, ‘Mrs. Deacon, or Deaconess’ and I would gently correct them, “Thank
you, but he is the deacon, I’m still Liz Ryan, who happens to have a husband who is ordained a deacon. My job is to my vows and to protect those vows with love and understanding.

“My role has to fit the needs of the people I serve," she adds. Whether that’s as
a wife, mother, DRE, Dental Assistant/manager, as a person who walks among God’s people with joy, and a smile happy to serve everyone in their hopes, dreams, sadness, laughs, joys, achievements, in the end I try to do the best
I can, serve with joy.”

And her encouragement for people who have stepped away?

“Never give up [on] prayer. The other day one of my daily reminders was a quote
from Mother Angelica that went something like, ‘don’t stop praying — keep the
course.’ I thought, it’s true. If you continue to pray throughout the day it keeps
you ready for anything.”

In addition to prayer, Liz has sought the guidance of a spiritual director. One
time in particular she recalls how an exchange with her spiritual director turned her perspective around and back to the idea of vocation.

“I was sharing with my spiritual director — Father Steve Rodrigo at the time — how I was sad because I wanted more children, and it wasn’t going to be. He looked at me and said so gently and matter-of-fact, ‘but Liz, you have lots of children. You are a teacher; you are a DRE — these are all your children.'

“Bells went off in my head and it really hit — this is my vocation — I can be a
spiritual mother to those in religious education — that’s another place where my
vocation is — hopefully to be that guiding (force) for the students and the parents.”