Marriage and Mercy: Living a Sacramental Life with Mike Towler

This week on Open Seat, Mike Towler shares his inspiring journey of finding the love of his life unexpectedly, discovering a new career in dentistry, and embracing a deep connection with the Catholic Faith. Mike and his wife, Jodi, serve in the Marriage Ministry at Holy Family Parish, guiding engaged couples in meaningful conversations about faith as they prepare for marriage. Mike also reflects on the importance of living a sacramental life—putting God first in marriage, raising children in the faith, and nurturing a love for the Eucharist, Mass, and Reconciliation.

This is a podcast of Holy Family Parish, located in Adrian MI. We are a Catholic people, not a place, striving to Live Jesus through celebrating the sacraments and forming disciples in Adrian and beyond.

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Open Seat es un podcast Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia ubicada en Adrian, Michigan. Somos un pueblo católico, no un lugar, que se esfuerza por vivir a Jesús celebrando los sacramentos y formando discípulos en Adrian y más allá.

Transcript

Mike: 0:00

She is definitely the strength. behind everything I do. She's been, is a wonderful wife, has been and is a wonderful mother. She has a masters in social work But she gave that up to raise our children. and so that was, that's how important the family was to her and she's done a great job. Plus, I'm her long term social work project so she's still working on her thesis there.

Katie: 0:21

Welcome to Open Seat, the podcast where we create a space for authentic conversations about faith, unfiltered and unapologetic. Here, we believe that every story matters. Whether you're questioning, seeking, or steadfast in your beliefs, you'll find something relatable in these heartfelt discussions. So grab your seat, get comfortable, and let's dive into today's story here at Open Seat. Well, welcome to the Open Seat today, Mr. Dr. Michael Towler. Which name do you prefer to go by with?

Mike: 1:00

Mike, is fine.

Katie: 1:01

So, Mike, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Okay. I'm one of two children in my family and, I guess my story that I'd like to share would probably start with where I went after high school. in high school, confidence was not a problem for me. I was overly confident, more than I should be. And I was the king of my little small world and just thought I had all the answers. And so, life started to humble me when my father passed away when I was 19, college became quite difficult, and I give credit to my mom for Raising us Catholic, but like a lot of kids, I fell away from the church when I was younger. And, I just was searching for answers. And so, you know, I always believe God just wants the window cracked. If we're open to anything that He wants to give us. He will always find a way in. And so, when I was in college, I wasn't really going to mass. wasn't practicing the faith but I did pray every night, and so that was the little window that God was looking for.

Mike: 2:01

I just knew that He existed, I just didn't have the connection that I would have liked. And so I just started to think about where I wanted to go with my life, and, having a family was really important to me, and I just made a decision that I wasn't going to date anymore, just to date, I was going to date to try to hopefully find my future wife. Little did I know my future wife was going through the same thing. She was tired of dating just to date, and so she started praying as well and we're both individually praying about who we wanted to find. And,

Katie: 2:32

Did you pray, like, any novenas or anything? Any specific?

Mike: 2:35

I really didn't know to do that at the time. I just would read the Bible. I left out reading the Bible. I'd read the Bible and pray. Just start talking. Open seat with God.

Katie: 2:46

Yeah.

Mike: 2:47

In any, in any event, I was getting ready to graduate with my engineering degree from U of M and I was at a party with a friend and she was just we were talking about where we wanted to go in life and somehow we got in the subject of the kind of woman I was hoping to meet and she said, I have a friend just like that someone she went to high school with. And this friend of ours needed help moving, as a lot of college kids do. So I was at her house helping her move, and my beautiful wife walked in the room and my jaw just dropped, and I just, I just knew, it was literally, there was no doubt, I think she's a very attractive woman, but it was more her smile, and she's just, it was just, I just, she had this piece about her and I just, I just knew she was the one, and I went from being very skeptical, like I don't want to, date anybody to I'm madly in love with this woman, which was kind of scary. Within two weeks, I wanted to propose to her and the engineer in me said, that's insane, you don't do that. So I held out and waited six weeks, I was really proud of myself. We were engaged for a year, so we got to know each other, but there was some nervousness in my family, like, what are you doing? You don't know this person. But we had both been praying intensely. And the conversations we had for the year we were engaged was all about how we wanted to raise kids, what we wanted out of life, what our faith meant to us. And when the two of us just grew in faith together. And so, we are going to be celebrating this coming year our 30th anniversary.

Katie: 4:12

Aww, congratulations. Saint Jodi.

Mike: 4:15

Well, she loves when you call her that.

Katie: 4:17

I know, but really.

Mike: 4:21

She is definitely the strength. behind everything I do. She's been, is a wonderful wife, has been and is a wonderful mother. She has a masters in social work and she really enjoyed what she was doing. But she gave that up to raise our children. and so that was, that's how important the family was to her and she's done a great job. Plus, I'm her long term social work project so she's still working on her thesis there.

Katie: 4:44

And, That does happen, you know.

Mike: 4:46

But where, this is going, we've always, we've grown in faith together, my wife has been a big inspiration for me in terms of, she was not Catholic to begin, she converted, became Catholic, and I learned a lot more about her faith from her and her journey, and we just, we put God first in our marriage, she'll be the first to tell you that, He never gets in the way because we both do that, But if I were ever to say like, I don't feel like going to church, I'm tired, she wouldn't say, oh, you know, you should get a break today. She'd say, no, get your butt up. You gotta go to church

Katie: 5:19

Well, there is one thing that I remember recently you had a spill on a bike. And so, We're both in the activity center watching Mass, and you're like, oh, I just have to walk around for Mass today. It's so uncomfortable to sit. I envisioned she probably was like that day, get up, go. You were lucky you only ended up with a couple bruises, Mike. Yeah.

Mike: 5:38

But We, we've always had a wonderful marriage people say marriage is work and, and it's true, but I don't mean that in a negative connotation. It's a work in that you have to invest your time effort, love into it which we've both done. I mean, I'm selfish you probably more than most people, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I need. I think I try to think about what she needs because I know she's always looking out for me and what I need as well. Which is really a peaceful place to be. Our marriage just gets stronger as time, goes on. we're very proud of our three children that we've raised. our youngest just left for college, so we're in this weird empty nester phase. And I've heard a lot of people struggle because the kids move out and they're like, Who are you? Getting to know each other again. And for us, it's just, I mean, we miss our kids, but we're loving it. It's like we're dating again. So, We've had ups and downs in our marriage, that we've always gotten through together. one was about 17 years into my career. the 2008 crisis happened and engineering and automotive was looking like it might not exist anymore. and so I just started thinking and praying, like, what am I going to do going forward? And, part of me thought I'd just kind of weather out the storm, see what happens. And then I just started thinking more about just changing careers. I was praying about it, of course. And at this point, I'm definitely saying novenas. I'm a huge fan of not only of Mass, but Going to adoration and I'm really bad at sitting still I just would tell myself even any go for five minutes and I would just sit there. And then five minutes turn into ten and then ten turned into twenty and I just would like Stare at the tabernacle

Katie: 7:16

at the

Mike: 7:16

Eucharist and just Monstrance and just ask God what do you want me to do? It was, it wasn't what I want. I would just always ask. What do you want? What do you want? And I guess I didn't feel like I got hit over the head with an answer, but you just find yourself gravitating to a certain path. And so I was getting my teeth cleaned one day, talking to my dentist about what I wanted to do and he said, what do you like? I said, I don't know. I like working with my hands. I like using my brain. I like working with people, And he said, well, you ought to be a dentist. And I kind of laughed and I thought about it and I said, you know, maybe I should. I was at work, it was a Friday. And I went online and I knew nothing about dentistry, and I just googled dental schools. I didn't know where they were. I found out there was two in Michigan. And then I found out that U of M had an open house once a year, and it was the next day.

Katie: 8:03

Oh!

Mike: 8:04

I said, okay, well this is something I should probably go take a look at. So I get home that night, and told my wife, you know, I think I want to be a dentist and she was like immediately supportive, she just, she didn't worry about not having a paycheck or how we're going to make it. She said, we'll make it. we'll get through it. So I went there the next day and I'm standing in the back of the room and I'm talking to this lady next to me about my age and she says, which one of these are your kid? And I said, well, I'm the kid. I'm thinking about going to dental school. And she said, Oh, and she started talking to me and asking about me. And I didn't know who she was. So, I'm just being honest with her about my life and what I'm trying hoping to do And she's looked at me, she said you should apply. Well, she was the director of admissions, which I didn't know.

Katie: 8:43

Ah!

Mike: 8:44

So, I Think she remembered that conversation because she knew that I was being genuine. So

Katie: 8:50

And about how old were you when you switched?

Mike: 8:52

I Started dental school at 39. so probably 38 when I I was at that meeting. And, so I entered, Kids immediately called me. pops, made fun of me, that was always fun. I remember the first test I took, a kid turned around and he said, are you going to get your abacus out for

Katie: 9:08

[Laughter] You're like, no, but I rode the dinosaur here, right? It

Mike: 9:14

a little intimidating at first because, Part that I left off is how much preparation had to go into getting ready for dental school. I knew nothing about the process. There's a test that you have to take. I had to study like mad for two and a half months, I mean literally non stop to even pass it. I ended up doing quite well through a lot of prayer our kids were going to Spiritus Sanctus in Ann Arbor, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, And I had all those sisters praying. I mean, there was prayer everywhere. I was not shy about asking for prayers,

Katie: 9:41

And were you working still at the same time as going to school?

Mike: 9:44

So basically my day then was I would go to work and things were slow 'cause the way the automotive industry was. and My boss basically said, if you get your work done, you know, study. I would study whenever I could at work. I'd get home, have dinner with the kids, pour a pot of coffee. I'd study till I couldn't Stay awake anymore, usually well past midnight. Did this for two and a half months. They said you should take a couple practice tests. I probably took 20. I mean, I just figured repetition. I had to do organic chemistry on this test, which I hadn't had in 17 years. Through the grace of God, I actually, that was my best score on the test. And my lowest score was something I was really good at. So I think that was God humbling me. But, That all worked out. So I got into dental school and at first it was very intimidating because these kids were like, the best of the best in terms of smartness, and they were just coming out of college. and so, dental school starts with very academic, very biochemistry driven, and I just was like treading water just trying to get good grades. It was so hard. and then usually about halfway through dental school, you get into the clinical part where it's all about effort and that's when Pops showed them a thing about working, I actually, that was the part where I really took off and finally, got my confidence up and I practiced in Metro Detroit, because that's where we were living at the time. And I was looking all over the state to buy a practice. We were trying to stay in the area just for our kids, for continuity, we had a lot of friends there.

Katie: 11:07

Are you from that area? that area?

Mike: 11:08

So I'm actually from Ann Arbor. Yeah. And, Jodi's from the Lansing area She's a Spartan, converted Wolverine her Master's degree, so.

Katie: 11:18

Well, thank goodness somebody was saved through this process.

Mike: 11:21

I root for Michigan State every game but one, so I think that's pretty good. I was looking for practices all over the state And we actually almost bought a practice in Holland, Michigan. And that's where I was supposed to end up. I mean, it was like, literally the rug was pulled out at the last minute and that's a story for another podcast, a long podcast. But, this broker I was working with said, I just got this listing. This is a great practice. You've got to check this out. Do you know where Adrian is? Actually, I do. Because when I played football in Ann Arbor, we won the state championship and we almost didn't make it because of this difficult, good team in Adrian that we played. And that was a long time ago. So I had been here once or twice. I'd been to the lakes around here. So let's give it a try. And, I really like being here. I liked it right away. It was a little adjustment for the family being more rural. but Jody loves it here. We love it here. My oldest daughter went to Lenawee Christian. she met her husband there. They got married three years ago. So, God works in mysterious ways. So She found her husband here and my son had a great experience there as well. you never know where life's going to take you, but our plan is to make this our home. and We have no plans to go anywhere.

Katie: 12:33

Yeah, I, I think, anytime you switch paths, it doesn't matter if it's a career, or a place of living it's all chaos for a while, right? And So, have things kind of settled down a little?

Mike: 12:45

I'm glad you led me there. St. Jodi is, uh, she just said, we're going to make this work. unfortunately when she got her master's degree in social work, you could just practice right away. And then, by the time I was going to dental school, they had all these new requirements where you had to get licensing and basically all this, these hours she would have to work to even be able to practice, even though she could have done that when she graduated. So we decided that wasn't a good path to go. She opened up a daycare out of her house, which was, I don't know how she did it. She did it every day. She would raise our kids. She would bring kids into the daycare, and whenever I would get down or discouraged about the challenges I was dealing with with school, she would always lift me up. I can't emphasize enough the strength and calmness that she brought, and she would probably tell you she was yelling at the kids all the time, but she wasn't. She was a great source of strength for our family.

Mike Towler: 13:36

family.

Katie: 13:37

So do do you pray for eachother?

Mike: 13:41

Absolutely. We Pray for each other. We pray together every night. I love reading. Most of what I read is about our faith, I don't read as much as I'd like, but when I do, I want to read about our faith. And I like to learn, but I always remind myself to keep it simple. It's all about the sacraments, you know, going to reconciliation, going to Mass, great book that I love, the Lamb's Supper with Scott Hahn about the Mass is literally heaven touching down on earth. I mean, there's no time where we can receive God more than at Mass. And, I just think as Catholics if we could just keep it simple and frequent the sacraments and, practice love, God is love. Of course, I try to be love. I don't always succeed. I had a, what should be an obvious revelation only a few years ago, I was just thinking about my relationship with God and how I sin when I don't want to. And I just started comparing that to my relationship with my wife, who I've always loved and never wanted to hurt. And I just, it just dawned on me, like, I think we often think God is so loving and forgiving, I can do these things. and He'll get over it. He'll forgive me. But then I thought my wife is very loving and very forgiving what if I went home every day and did bad things to her disrespected her, And knowing that she would put up with it And love me and forgive me. Why would I do that? I wouldn't so why would things be any different with God ever since that obvious thing kind of Ended up on my heart. I've just always thought about that whenever temptation arises to just remember that.

Katie: 15:04

That's a really deep revelation and I think that not many people would put that correlation together

Mike: 15:10

Well, it's the grace of god. It really is.

Katie: 15:13

Is that the kind of wisdom you share in marriage prep? Because I know you two are leading that ministry.

Mike: 15:19

So it was something that Deacon Len was glad to have us take over, and it was almost like, here you go, good luck. No, he was helpful. it was a little intimidating for us at first, but we've, we have great couples that go on through the program. They teach you with the training that you're more a facilitator. Your goal is to get the couple talking. And as we always say, we're not here to judge. We're not here really to give advice. We might say some things. The goal here is we bring things up and the two of you, you should even be looking at each other and just talking and we're just facilitating the conversation. So, that took a lot of weight off for us because we thought we were supposed to come in and give all this expert advice.

Katie: 15:55

Save all these marriages,

Mike: 15:56

But we've had great couples and I feel Jodi does a great job and I think I'm doing pretty well. But we do try to give some advice from time to time just about putting God first and then putting your marriage second and then putting your children third, which surprises a lot of people. This doesn't mean that one party in this gets neglected. If you put God first, that drives the marriage and keeps it on track. And then if the marriage is good, it keeps how you raise your kids on track. kids are, they're manipulators, you tell one kid, no, they're going to go to the other parent. Well, what do you think? And so, you know, just having a common understanding of how we want to raise our kids, the message that we give them, sharing our faith together. We both of course always go to Mass unless we're sick and the kids know that if you're living in this house, you're going to go to Mass. And so it's, that's been, a struggle at times, but they go and I know it's planting seeds because it planted seeds for me too when I fell away from the church.

Katie: 16:50

Were you instrumental in your wife converting to Catholicism?

Mike: 16:54

So I fell away from the church and I wasn't going to Mass anymore. And then I think because we prayed so much and we were very much into bringing God into our marriage, but we didn't know how to do that. And so we started going to different churches because Jodi was, she had gone to a few churches, but different Protestant churches. And so we went to some of those, went to the Catholic church and then unfortunately, the Catholic church, we went just to look at it from a secular perspective. It wasn't very interesting. And so we were talking about that and I made that comment too. That was kind of boring, frankly, but I just said something that is so obvious. I'm embarrassed to even say it. Like something's missing. I didn't know what it was. And I just realized it's the Eucharist and so I told Jodi what the Eucharist meant to me and to Catholics. And it was something that I think she found on her own, whether or not she wanted to do it because I was Catholic, I don't know, but I wasn't really practicing. So I think it was something that she just found on her own through prayer and, it was revealed to her. And then she entered RCIA and that was right around the time our daughter was born. So it was

Katie: 17:59

25 years ago. So it was after you got married?

Mike: 18:02

After we got married, Yep. We love our faith. And life is good. good

Katie: 18:06

Am I correct that your daughter's husband has now converted?

Mike: 18:10

Yes, he did. Yeah. And I would say the same thing with him. That was something our daughter, our kids all have different strengths and different gifts. That was a gift our daughter always had, is she always loved our faith. She's had that ever since she was a little girl. And when he asked for her hand, which I thought that was really, nice of him to do. I didn't want to lecture, but that is one thing I brought up, is do you plan to raise your kids Catholic? I didn't ask if he was going to convert, because that's not a requirement, but of course we do ask that if you marry, that you raise your kids Catholic he said, absolutely. So I think he found that through himself. He's a very prayerful, smart guy, maybe you'll have him on, he can tell his story, but yeah.

Katie: 18:48

I think though that's the struggle, sometimes, because even in in baptism, you say, I'll raise my child Catholic, but what does that mean? How do you do that, know? And so, if you have people from different belief systems that can be really tricky to navigate.

Mike: 19:03

Right, absolutely.

Katie: 19:04

So that's why I wondered like at what point jodi converted. Cause when you were talking about, you had these conversations during engagement period where you were talking about how you want your kids to be raised and stuff. I just wondered if that ever came up where it was a conflict.

Mike: 19:19

I don't think it did and that would be on me because the Catholic faith wasn't that important to me at the time. We both wanted a relationship with Jesus, for sure. And we wanted to bring God into our marriage. And we recognized right away that God brought us together. It was just, it was literally like a lightning bolt when I met her. I just knew. And so we gave God that credit, but we were still finding our way. So I would just encourage anyone that's either considering the Catholic faith, or which, denomination in general they were interested in or someone that is already Catholic that maybe feels like their faith is a little dry, my advice to people is focus on the Eucharist. That's what makes our Catholic faith unique and just learn about it, learn about how it's talked about it in the Bible because it's very important to Protestants, to all of us, but Protestants especially, John chapter 6, the book of Revelation That's the Lamb's Supper talks all about how the whole book of Revelation is basically about the Eucharist. It's incredible the insights that Scott had. It's an old book now But it's a great book. to read about that. I just read it about a week ago, because I'd recommended it someone said, I should read this again. But just focusing on keeping it simple, focusing on the Eucharist, focusing on going to Mass, even if you're not Catholic yet, just to go to the Mass. A lot of non Catholics have been inspired just by attending mass and seeing how scriptural it is devotion to the Eucharist.

Katie: 20:40

Right. It is very scriptural, which I think most people don't have an understanding of.

Mike: 20:44

And reconciliation, it's not always easy. it's very humbling to go And see a priest that you know socially and you know at Mass, okay, now I got to tell you all my dirty laundry. But you could go somewhere else. I mean, you don't have to go to the parish that you go to Mass to, but it's very cleansing to receive The Sacrament of Reconciliation, and they receive the Eucharist. it's grace, it's power, it's strength.

Katie: 21:09

One of the things for Reconciliation that I always find really powerful for our parish is on Good Friday, Father Mike does confessions for like five and a half hours or something. And I think now Father Bob is helping him, maybe even Father Tom this year But, it is, it's incredibly humbling to see the amount of people who are going to confession on that day. And just to know that all the mercy that God is showing is being poured out in that place.

Mike: 21:34

You hit the nail on the head, I think, people often think, why do I need to confess to a priest? Why can't I just confess to God in private? But this was God's design and I think it was his design because he wanted us to hear audibly your sins are forgiven. And wanted us to get guidance from someone. that has been ordained And given the seal to give God's grace and mercy. So he works through the priest. I mean, that's what a priest would tell you and that's certainly how it works. And I I've been to confessions from many priests, and some of the confessions I've felt We're more helpful than others, but I've never left thinking that was not helpful.

Katie: 22:10

Man, I just wasted my time, and that guy knows so much about me. I think also one of the key things of confession is the fact that we say the Act of Contrition which is I screwed up and I will try not to do it again I can speak for myself, if I were just confessing in my bedroom well it would be like, okay, God, here, X, y, Z, I screwed up see ya. There would never be that public accountability of I will not do this again. So, I always find that super powerful about confession, too. you are actually saying, yeah, I'm actively working on fixing it, instead of it just being like, oh,no big deal.

Mike: 22:45

There's something a little more formal, like, okay, I've got to actually tell someone this, I can't just sweep this, under the rug and a quick, you know, prayer to God. It's like putting it on the table, really dealing with it.

Katie: 22:55

So if you could tell your younger self one good, solid piece of advice from all that you've shared today, which is a lot, and I'm grateful for that. What piece of advice would you give your younger self?

Mike: 23:06

If I could go back in time to my high school self, I would walk up to myself smack myself on the head and say, you don't know anything. But in all seriousness, again, God brought me back, But I could have not found my way back. And so I think I would just encourage myself to keep the door open. And that's what I would say to anybody that is either struggling with faith in general or just not sure about the existence of God. Just pray. this world makes no sense without God. I don't know how you can even, make sense of the way things are without recognizing God as a creator. And so C. S. Lewis said, I'm going to paraphrase a quote. There's something in effect of God's either of no importance or of infinite importance. He can't be in the middle. And so just pondering that, just, does God exist? And if he does, I should be giving him everything that I can. And he wants us to be happy, you know, being a faithful Catholic does not mean, Suffering all the time and, feeling like you're, worthless all the time. From the greatest to the least, we all screw up. And so we have to be joyful and live our lives joyfully, but also be mindful that we have a tendency to sin. And the devil is very clever. And that's that's where the power of the sacraments come in. It's the grace that we receive to fight evil. and that's the other thing is that I'll be honest about the fact that there's a fight between good and evil and and you say that and younger people, might blow that off, think it's a funny comment. I know my kids have laughed when I said that but There's good and evil fighting all the time and so it's the decisions that you make and it's so easy to make the wrong decision. if you don't have some focus on heaven and Jesus, It's more comfortable to live in sin. even though I believe it makes you less happy, as far as making daily decisions, it's more comfortable to just seek pleasure and try to minimize pain.

Katie: 24:57

And I'm assuming you're recommending everyone read, The Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn.

Mike: 25:01

It's a great book. There's a lot of books that I like reading. I love C. S. Lewis.

Katie: 25:06

Screw tape letters.

Mike: 25:07

He has wonderful books. Mere christianity. different books appeal to different people. So I like something that's, a little deeper, I guess if you, I don't know. For me, reading a book like, Matthew Kelly's a popular author, and he writes great things, but he's a little more emotional, and so that appeals to some people. I don't, that's not my go to. I go to people that I think are a little more, logical and research based, but I recognize that not everyone would, would want to do that

Katie: 25:33

Yeah, well, I just want to thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Towler.

Mike: 25:37

Mike will suffice, thank you.

Katie: 25:39

I mean, We could call you what Randy did, Mrs. and Mrs. Towler.

Mike: 25:44

Yeah, we got a nice thank you note from Randy that said, Dear Mrs. and Mrs. Towler, that was fun. And then Jodi said, I should send a picture of this to Katie. I said, you gotta do it right now. it She did, and of course, you ran with that I,

Katie: 25:56

Randy is just Randy and so uh, his podcast episode not too long ago. and he did a great job explaining himself. Thank you so much for joining us today, and you had a lot of wisdom on marriage and family and I hope that you continue to share that.

Mike: 26:11

Thank you.

Katie: 26:13

Once again, we thank you for joining us today. We hope that wherever you find an open seat in your life, you will invite someone to join you.