One hundred thirteen days…
Do you remember the old Disney lyric, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes?” By nature, I am a dreamer, and this girl’s almost 40-year-old heart has been dreaming up a storm since birth. I spoke in an earlier post of how my dreams have altered since childhood. Most have, but there was one dream in particular that stayed consistent since my youth. I’m going to give you a peek into the first chapter of my book today, but before I do I want to say this… standing on the doorstep to anywhere would leave me weak and weary without dreams. There would be no purpose in the door opening if there was no hope in my heart for something more. I’m not communicating under the pretense of “more” being things like fame and fortune. I’m speaking of something deep-seated. Some might say my dreams are simple. To those who never had to work hard to achieve “simple” dreams, I can understand the misconception. I believe most of my dreams have been desires placed in my heart by God alone. When I align my will with His, big things happen. I cannot say things end up exactly as I planned, and I’m definitely not saying things come easy, because they most certainly do not…
(Chapter One)
A Little Background
I always wanted to be a wife and a mother. I know in a world where feminism is soaring to new heights, these aspirations may seem very 1950s, but creating a happy “nuclear” family including two parents that do not just love each other but are “in love” with each other was the only thing I really wanted in life.
I grant that some of this probably came from the fact I come from a divorced family, and even though I do not consider my siblings to be “half” siblings, the biological facts are that with one brother I share a mother, and with the other a father, which plainly means, that is what we are… half siblings. So for me, having a husband who loves me and multiple children with him alone was always a dream of mine.
When I was around the age of ten, I remember going to a harvest party on Halloween night at a local church. Several games were being played at the event, and each group of children moved from one station to the next taking part in all the games. At one of the stations the adult leaders were asking some of the children questions. I was asked the question, “If you could be any person from the Bible, who would you be and why?” My answer came quickly: “I would want to be Mary, because she is the mother of Jesus.”
I am sharing this tiny, seemingly insignificant part of my childhood with you, because for as long as I can remember, there was always a deep desire in me to be a mother. I have no idea why the memory of that particular moment at that party has stayed vivid to me, but it does help me illustrate a picture of my heart to you.
I count myself extremely blessed to have grown up attending a private Christian school. It was, and still is, a very small school with not a lot of materialistic things to offer but a wealth of spiritual knowledge that is undeniable.
I met my husband Paul at that school as a young teenager. We were high school sweethearts. We dreamed about marriage from the time I was fifteen and he was sixteen. In June of 1990, Paul graduated from high school, and he asked me to marry him. I am a year younger than he, so I was engaged my senior year. While my friends were choosing colleges, I was planning a wedding. We married in August of 1991, at the very young ages of eighteen and nineteen.
Marrying young and having a healthy marriage that works is a rarity, especially when dealing with the trials and tribulations that come with this life. Either people stick together and become closer, or they run as far and as fast from each other as they can. My husband and I have just recently celebrated our twenty first wedding anniversary. We are closer than ever. We have endured great trials, and in this area of our lives, we have finally claimed the victory!
