Dreams Will Come True If They Are From God...

Don't you know that God plants his own lovely dream in the human heart and that when that dream is mature and the time is right for it's fulfillment, well, suddenly to our astonishment and delight, His will becomes ours and ours His. Now who but God could have thought out anything as perfect as this?" ~Peter Marshal in "A Man Called Peter."

Heartbreak...

And the pain comes again.

I trusted...it was broken.

Now Christ must heal the wound.

Time...

One Foot in Front of the Other...

I suppose I'm not the only person who has ever had a perfect plan made only to have God tell you, without any doubt, that you have to change them.

Now, if you are anything like me you go through this 24-72 hour span of time where you are pretty sure the world is ending (and yes, you spend the whole time persuading yourself that everything will be ok) and your friends are saints, listening to you work through your problems. Towards the end of this time period your neuron pathways are beginning to realign to the fact that things aren't going to be how you planned then and your new plan is being formed...

So yes, I had some major plans change and I had a choice...change the plans of loose that which I loved the most. Waiting for God and trusting Him I have discovered doesn't come naturally.

But when you pray, force yourself to trust no matter what, give it to your Heavenly Father something wonderful happens...peace.

It's worth the trial just to reach the peace that comes when you trust God.

~Christine

Real Life Fairytale - Plumb

I smile a lot these days...:-) He makes me happy...:-) Never fight God's providence.

You ran around inside my head
When you passed out, I felt dead
And I realized you make me live
And when my world starts to cave in, you jump inside and take my hand
No matter where, you are there
Will I ever see, what you could see in me? I do, I just believe that we will always be and dream, yeah
Well, I will never be the sign that we must see, that you and me were meant to be so just believe why we are together

You are my light, you are my star,

You are my sunshine and my dark
You are the everything I dreamed about
You are the guy who stole my heart
I am the girl you're always smiling for
We have a love people dream about
A real life fairytale

I thought that I would be alone
You caught my eye and I was home
And I realized that this was love
I see the world through different eyes
I look at you by my side
No matter where, you're always there
Will I ever see what you could see in me? I do, I just believe that we will always be and dream, yeah
Well, I will never be the side that you will see, that you and me were meant to be so just believe why we are together

You are my light, you are my star
You are my sunshine and my dark
You are the everything I dreamed about
You are the guy who stole my heart
I am the girl you're always smiling for
We have a love people dream about
Dream with me, make me believe that this is a real life fairytale!

You are my light, you are my star
You are my sunshine, and my dark
You are the everything I dreamed about!
You are the guy who stole my heart
I am the girl you're always smiling for
We have a love people dream about
A real life fairytale
A real life fairtytale
A real life fairytale

The First Page...

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. ~Philippians 3:13.

It’s odd leaving one’s childhood behind. On October 9, 2009, I stood for the last time in the backyard of my childhood home and said goodbye…my life so different than it once was, but I found no need for tears. It was time to go and there was peace in my heart. I knew, deep down in the innermost parts of my soul that God was calling me elsewhere. No questions or doubts on my part…Fort Worth is now where I am called to be…at least for a short time.

It has been a hard year. Failing the NCLEX, Mother getting sick, loosing the man I loved, and, finally, loosing that Mother who had always been the strength and backbone of my family. Many tears have been shed, many prayers prayed, and daily a heart full of pain and anguish raised to the only One who hears the deepest cry of the heart. A few nights before leaving Shreveport for Fort Worth the dam finally broke and all the tears that had been locked away finally were loosed and I wept…and in that weeping something beautiful happened. I let go. I let go of dreams I had been holding onto, scared to give up and I realized that all would be well. I was finally ready to put that chapter of my life behind me and look forward to the future with a heart filled with excitement.

And then, something exciting did happen. God, in His beautiful wisdom, worked everything out and now I sit here, three weeks after leaving Shreveport, happier than I have been in months and more ready than ever to move forward.

Quietly and without drama (only those of you who know me well will understand the significance of that statement) God brought love and hope back into my heart in the form of a wonderful man named Zachary Franklin. Would you care for a story?

It begins ten years ago, on May 29, 1999. My family was attending our first Southern Heritage Ball in Monroe, LA as was the Franklin family. Now, for all of you who have been to the Monroe Balls, I don’t need to spell it out too much…you know how it works. Families and kids meet and we all kept up with each other, seeing each other once or twice a year. And sometimes things happen…sometimes.:-)

Well, I asked Zach back in May to attend my darling Julie’s wedding on October 25^th with me as I needed a good dance partner. Zach, being the gentleman he is and always up for a good time, of course said yes. Over the summer we talked a couple of times and I suppose got to know each other better. Being that we are both in the medical profession (he’s and EMT/Paramedic) we always have plenty of disgusting things to talk about so to put it lightly our conversations are quite interesting (medical people really shouldn’t be allowed to date). Then, the week I moved to Fort Worth, I was on the phone with Zach discussing some major drama that had happened and our conversation had wandered to other topics when he mentioned that he would like to do medical missions…and that was pretty much it. A switch somewhere deep inside me switched and I pretty much knew that I know liked Zachary Franklin…my first thought was pretty much “Oh great, God what are you up to this time? Really? Honestly?”

So, I decided to behave myself, but apparently He could tell that I was interested so he dug up an excuse to come up that week…for you see, Zach has apparently has apparently been secretly crushing on me for 10 years unknown to anyone. His sister, Rachel, who happens to be one of my best friends, was giving him a couch and so he suddenly had an urgent reason to come get it. He came, we felt each other out while hanging out with some friends, he went back home, and that Saturday, one week after moving, he asked me out…and I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no…so I said yes and was quite happy and excited about the fact. Something about everything that was happening just seemed to fit.

Well, we kept it quiet (unusual for me I know) and only told our families that week. A blessing was obtained from his parents, Rachel approved, and I called my dad and filled him in…and surprisingly he was cool with it as well. So, after a long hard day at work Zach picked me up and took me off to Carrabbas for dinner and my ever favorite Pomegranate Martini…J It was one of those epic fail first dates…for him anyway…I was martini happy…but we came through it and quite enjoyed ourselves by the end of it. Agreeing that we really wanted to see it this could work we parted ways at 3am and I went to bed.

The next day we headed to Shreveport, beginning to spread the good news to friends along the way…everyone was quite shocked as all of this was very out of the blue…and eventually arrived in Shreveport for the great moving party (Thank you every so much to Randie, Robbie, Jaime, Paul and Evan for all their help getting me into the new apartment.) Zach was also able to have a chat with Daddy and received his blessing for our go ahead. It was quite a lovely weekend…J

So now, the adventure starts and we shall see where it ends up. I for one, am quite excited…He sends me roses at work…I just happen to think that’s very nice…J It’s nice to smile again…J

It's Been a Good While...

This dear place seems to be sadly neglected...unfortunately, it to must wait for the great move to Fort Worth and the Apartment move in...

I'll be back with great thoughts yet unknown...

In the meantime...Life....welll, it's happy today!

<3

Remembering Momma...

It is hard for me to find words to say.  People ask me if I am “alright” and if I am “doing ok” and I always say yes.  However, somewhere, deep down, there is a longing, different than any I have ever felt before laying there, slowly rising to the surface as the days go by and the reality of what I have lost begins to come.

I was blessed to be the daughter of an amazing woman, one whose example helped mold and shape me into who I am today.  In the last eight months, during my mother’s illness, I was gifted to begin to know my mother in a different way.  We didn’t have any life changing conversations, in fact we probably talked less during this time of our lives than ever before, but I would visit her daily, check in on her, help care for her, and just make sure she was ok.  I was there to try to boost her spirits when they fell, bounce in on a cloudy day dressed like the spring to make her smile, and in the last month I sat down with her and shared with her my plans for my life, something which I had never done before.

Was this enough?  No.  I still feel that I could have done more, and I know I could have but my own life got in the way.  However, my mother was an understanding saint and she saw that I was also going through a time of immense hurt and emotional pain in my own life and that I was trying to spread my wings and figure out where I should take my life.  Did I have enough time with her?  No.  And daily, as the reality begins to sink in it hits me with what it means to never be able to speak to your mother again, to never run to her in excitement with your latest discovery or find in life.  I have begun to realize that she will not be there on the day when I get married, or have my children.  My children, like me, will never know my mother as I never knew her mother…strange how this pattern remains.  Those special moments will still be precious but lacking. 

As I write this, for the first time since my phone rang and my father’s voice told me the news, tears are coming to my eyes and the pain rises in all of its awful reality.  I grieve, not that she is in Heaven, but for my loss, for I have indeed lost.  She is happy and well, surrounded by those who she said good bye to in her own life.  She is now rejoined with her mother, several dear elderly friends and relatives, each of whom she in turn mourned.  She is happy, finally able to do everything that she has dreamed of for so long.  I can see her sitting happily on a perfect beach on Prince Edward Island or wandering through the Yorkshire Dales as she always wanted to do.  Joy is hers and the loss is ours.

One thing I know.  My mother’s spirit and zest for life do remain on this earth…I inherited them.  My mother taught me how to see people, how to have grace for them, and how to give up and allow people to make their mistakes.  I wish that I had realized this long before I became 22.  How much more I could have learned.  Of all my mother’s three daughters, it is I who am the most like her.  She often said it herself and though I realized the truth of this I never grasped how much of a blessing this was until her illness and her old friends came to see her and to be with her.  Unfailingly they would look at me, look at my mother and tell her how much I was just like her.  At first I smiled, then I began to hear stories and memories about Momma.  It was truly amazing.  I am honored indeed to be the one to carry her likeness, albeit with my own special quirks, to the world for a little while longer.

Now, only memories remain…Here are a few that I have…

Picking zinnias, one of her favorite flowers, in the gardens in the summer…

Learning how to make gravy…

How she smelt after coming home from a day at work when we would run out to the car to greet her in excitement…the sent of her scrubs, clean and fresh with a hint of something that I have yet to pinpoint…I miss it.

Long talks in the evening while getting ready for bed, just me and Mom when she got home at 11 o’clock at night, staying up late for no reason in particular.  Then there would be nights when all four of us girls would stay up late, sitting on the bathroom counters, talking while we “got ready for bed.”

The road trips up to Mr. Moon’s Farm all during my childhood, getting up early, eating a fresh farm breakfast, and playing in creeks all the day; one of my mother’s best gifts to me as a child and teenager.  The creeks, the dirty clothes, the animals, the insanity…how special it was.

Mother’s cooking…beef stew, roast beef, chicken pot pie, baked chicken with carrots and potatoes, cabbage and pork chops (one of my least favorites but she loved it).

The many, many things she did daily to make us a better family, to give us gifts, to provide for us…I cannot name them all.  All done from a mother’s love…

The proud smile on her face the last time I saw her before her illness as Claire and I came downstairs on our way out the door headed to church dressed to the nines…

Her words to me as she had the honor of giving me my nursing pin when I graduated in May of 2008…

The one email I received from her…

These are just a few.  For those of you who read these words that never had the honor to meet my wonderful, crazy, and insane mother I am sorry that you were never able to…you would probably understand me so much more.  Anne White was a woman who loved all those who crossed her path, who was an angel to the sick and needy, who went out of her way to help everyone no matter what it took out of her.  Yes, we had our bad days, believe me when I say that my mom and I clashed very often but we were, for the most part, always friends.  She saw to it that her daughters were prepared for life, leaving only the work of raising Claire unfinished but she died in the comfort that her faithful friends and her two older daughters and husband would be there to look after her baby.

I could go on for quite a while but I think I shall end this tribute here with a few final words…

Thank you to EVERYONE who raised prayers and supplications for my mother’s healing and return home.  Thank you to everyone who provided food, time, and effort in the eight months that she was sick to come see her and fellowship with her.  Thank you all of the friends and loved ones that drove long distances to be with my family and me as we placed my mother in her final resting place.  I don’t have any words to tell you how much it means to me.  I have been awed and overwhelmed by the love and generosity that we have seen. 

For myself, most of all, I would like to thank those friends and loved ones of my mother who came to see her during those eight months who took the time to get to know me as well and took the time to tell me stories of the Anne “Zing” White that all of you knew.  It helped open my eyes to how blessed I am to be my mother’s daughter and how wonderful it is to be so similar to her.  Thank you, for all you have done for me. 

Finally, to all the Doctors and Nurses who took care of Momma, thank you for all your work and tireless effort on her behalf.  She would not have made it through the last eight months without your hard work and dedication.  I am truly grateful.  Thank you does not suffice for all you have done but for now it will have to do until I find a better way to say it.

Love and Blessings…

~Christine