Marie Quinlan (Personal Testimony): From Nurse to Pastor’s Wife, “No Regrets Serving Jesus” in Ireland
Photos courtesy of Marie Quinlan
Marie Quinlan grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family in the hills of Ballyfarnon, near Sligo in northwest Ireland. Training as a nurse at age 19, Marie had always considered herself a good person. “I loved attending mass,” she recalled. “I even went every day while I was in college.”
Meanwhile, several of her brothers moved to the U.S. for work; Brendan accepted Christ in London in the 1990s. He began to challenge Marie’s traditional beliefs during their long-distance phone calls. Romans 3:23 declares, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. When Brendan confronted Marie with her sin, she was so furious that she called her sister Ann in England.
“Do you know Brendan is after callin’ me a sinner!” she fumed.
Ann answered wryly, “Well, I’ve no problem understanding that I’m a sinner.”
Marie didn’t feel like a sinner. She had always tried to do the right thing and help people. She felt she was a better person than many others she knew. But, if she were honest, she couldn’t shake the uncertainty of whether she would go to Heaven or purgatory when she died. “I had no assurance of salvation,” she recalled.
For nearly eight years, Brendan reasoned with her, often giving a hard question to think over. “If you were good enough to get to Heaven on your own,” he challenged one night, “then why did Jesus have to die?” That question ate at her; she didn’t know.
Another brother, Frank, who attended Calvary Chapel Boston, MA, brought up her children. “I realized I only had a few years left with them,” she said, “and I wanted to raise them in the truth.” He sent a children’s Bible. As she and Tim read the Scripture, simple devotional, and prayer with them each night, Marie began to see the truth. “I remember [realizing] that it was Jesus who was the ultimate sacrifice,” she recalled, “and that He was all I needed.”
Her relationship with the Lord became more personal. Instead of attending a week-long novena in Roscrea, she sensed the Lord drawing her to Himself. “I didn’t go; I sat down and opened my Bible and spent that time with the Lord. He was showing me that He was enough.” She began secretly listening to an evangelical Christian radio station. Little did she realize God was also working on her husband Tim, Brendan’s long-time friend.
In the summer of 2003, the Quinlans traveled to Boston to visit Marie’s family. After attending CC Boston together, Brendan began to share again. Tim declared that he had decided to follow Christ. Marie’s eyes welled with happy tears. “That was the turning point, realizing that both of us wanted to follow Jesus.” They took their kids to Maine for a holiday. “It was the most amazing time—sharing with each other, reading the Word together. I was just on a high. It was the Holy Spirit. I knew I was transformed, and this was my life now. This was the only way.”
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
After returning to their farm in central Ireland, Marie noted, “I started telling everyone about Jesus. We told the neighbors that the highlight of our trip was coming to know Jesus.” Chuckling, she recalled, “I knew they were missing a big piece of the puzzle, and I thought they would understand immediately and come to the Lord.” But some pulled away.
God was still working. Marie’s mother also accepted Christ that year and was baptized at the age of 86; two years later, her sister Ann did too. Just before he died, her father related that he had also received Christ after talking to another brother, Tony.
Marie’s heart burned to share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ with her fellow countrymen. She took a break from nursing to study one day a week at the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin. As she rode the train two and a half hours each way, “I was always sharing the Gospel with people.” Sadly, only a few people seemed to listen to the petite nurse with twinkling seafoam eyes and ready smile. At first, Marie was discouraged. She then realized, “It took at least seven or eight years before I really got it. That gives me great hope for Irish Catholics.”
Shifting their trust from religion to a personal relationship with Christ is a great challenge for many Irish, Marie explained. “There is a cost. We were quite involved in our Catholic church; it was our community. … Your neighbors think you’re crazy and don’t want to talk to you.”
Yet, in God’s amazing kindness, Marie met another born-again woman at the children’s swimming lessons in Nenagh who invited them to a Bible study. One day she and Tim heard an American missionary pastor named Gary Gilbert teach the Word in County TIpperary. “We knew that’s what we wanted,” Marie recalled. “We were really hungry for the Word.”
Gary and his wife Holly soon planted a church in Ballinasloe. For three years, the Quinlans traveled over an hour each way to attend. Then they rented the family farm and moved to Ballinasloe. Tim and Gary would share Christ with the Irish men. Marie passed out countless tracts. Six years later, Tim took over pastorship in 2009. Several Calvary Chapel teams from the U.S. came to help build out the new church in an old Guiness storehouse. This summer, Pastor Tim plans to turn Ballinasloe Christian Fellowship over to Joshua Walshe, an Irish-American who was raised in the church.
Marie reflected, “In our early days, Tim and I would wonder if we were crazy. But we would take turns encouraging each other.” She cited Jesus’ words: “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62b). “That became our verse; there was no turning back for us. I have no regrets serving Jesus.”
What is most important to her about being a Christian? “To enjoy Jesus, to spend time with Him every day. You can get very enthusiastic and want to do many things for the Lord, but it’s your relationship with Jesus that matters most.”
She noted Jesus’ words in John 15:4: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” She added, “To abide in Him is just clinging to Jesus, really. I love the picture of that. He is the vine and we are the branches; He is doing the work in us.”
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