The Miracle Mistake

Sean and Catherine Steen’s life was everything they could ever want. The couple had spent nearly 15 years together and raised two beautiful boys, Elijah and Isaiah. Sean was working in the television production business and Catherine as a wardrobe stylist. Everything seemed perfect, at least from the outside.

But in reality they were on the brink of divorce. Catherine was hurting, but she put on a brave face for the boys. She hadn’t even had a chance to breath before a sudden phone call threw her even further into the eye of the storm – her husband had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Sean had been arrested for his involvement in a drug-related crime, and even as a first-time offender guilty only by association, he received a maximum sentence. “I took responsibility for my actions, but since I didn’t physically do anything, I thought I would get off or at least get probation,” Sean says. Soon after, he heard the news and immediately called Catherine.

“I’ll never forget that phone call. I felt like I was suffocating from inside my own body,” Catherine says. Though she and her husband had not been on the best terms in the weeks leading up to his arrest, 10 years without him seemed unimaginable. Sean was the provider of the home, and living as a single mom of two in Orange County on one meager income was nearly unheard of.

Seconds after hanging up the phone, Catherine knew the next step would be the hardest – telling her boys. As she explained what had happened to their father, 12-year-old Elijah clammed up and showed no emotion while 9-year-old Isaiah began to cry uncontrollably and ran to his room.

“I told them, ‘It’s okay, God is going to get us through this. We are going to be better and stronger because of this,’” Catherine says. “But as tough as I tried to be for them, I had to pray every day for strength.” Catherine knew the only way to come out of this stronger was to lean into God.

Catherine did everything she could to ensure her sons’ happiness, which meant Sean often called them from prison and the family visited together on a regular basis. Sean’s hope was found in the promise of reuniting with his sons. “I tried to be the best dad I could, and I know they knew that. Elijah told me when he was 14, ‘You’re not a bad dad, you just made some bad choices.’”

But somehow, in the years following Sean’s arrest, Catherine had lost sight of her own happiness. “I had spent so long trying to take care of everyone around me, I forgot to take care of myself,” Catherine says. “I fell into a deep depression.”

In 2012, five years into Sean’s sentence, Catherine filed for divorce.

Signing the papers wasn’t an easy decision for Catherine, but when Sean received that letter in the mail, he didn’t think twice.

“I understood the position I had put them in by doing the things that I did,” Sean says of the time be spent reflecting behind bars. “When I received those papers in the mail I wasn’t going to argue because it was my fault, so I signed them without question. But inside I was hurting,”

Both Sean and Catherine, believing their divorce had been finalized, used this time to draw closer to the Lord. Sean attended Bible college through a program at the prison while Catherine sought counseling at Saddleback.

It was during time with her counselor that Catherine began to second-guess her decision. She had felt guilt where she had expected freedom. “My husband had been unfaithful and had divorced me before I divorced him, so she encouraged me to release my guilt,” Catherine says. “But she also asked me if I could ever forgive him. She asked me if I still loved him.” These questions left Catherine in tears, and she knew God wasn’t done with her marriage.

A year after filing for divorce and multiple counseling sessions later, Catherine received a letter in the mail from the courthouse. She had missed a step in the divorce process and somehow, after a year of believing she and Sean were divorced, she found out it wasn’t finalized. This last step, which would be a hassle to anyone else, proved to be the miracle Catherine needed.

She stopped the divorce proceedings and told Sean that she had experienced a change of heart, to which he was grateful.

Three years later, in March of 2015, Sean was released on good behavior. Though he is still on a probationary period, coming home has been the greatest joy of his life.

“It’s like we are dating again,” Sean says of his second chance at a relationship with his wife. “Everything is fun – going to the grocery store, going for a walk. Even just sitting outside and listening to the trees is a fun day for me.”

As Sean and Catherine enter this new stage of life, both Elijah and Isaiah, now 21 and 18, are entering their own as they journey through college.

“Every day is a blessing. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think or feel or say ‘Thank you, God.’ Every day is a wonderful day.