A lesson from Cinderella?

Anyone else still trying to make sense of all of this??

My mind reels with questions and pieces of conversations that are ongoing with God. As Shep and I continue to just do what we know to do, it is very difficult not to question everything. I mean everything.....the last 7 years....everything that has happened to encourage us....was all of that a lie?? Have we made it all up??

Honestly, I just can't go there. If I do, hope fades and I give up.

I laid down on the couch yesterday for about 45 minutes while the t.v. was showing one of the hundreds of fairy tale movies that we have. Ava adores fairy tales. We always root for the poor pretty princess, wait expectantly on her prince, and discuss all of the mean characteristics of the evil queen. (isn't that the way they all end..)

As I lay there, a picture of a scene in Cinderella flashed across my mind. I say that because that is exactly how it happened. We weren't watching Cinderella, but suddenly in my mind I picture the scene where Cinderella is so excited about going to the ball. She stands in her gown that her mice and bird friends had made. She had such pride and such anticipation. They had pieced together and worked so hard to make her pretty dress. She dashes down the stairs to catch her step-mother and step-sisters before they leave for the ball....only they take one look at her in her pretty gown and tear it to pieces.

Of course, she is devastated. Her hopes of going to the ball, leaving her current circumstances, and wearing that beautiful dress.....it is all gone. She runs away crushed and crying.

As she sits in the garden in what's left of her torn gown....she is devastated. She has questions and wonders why things are so unfair.

***Wouldn't it be so sad for the story to end here?***

What happens next? Her fairy godmother shows up and works her magic. Before Cinderella just had a pretty dress. Now, Cinderella had a coach, a coachman, a driver, horses, and oh- a new dress. A dress that far exceeds the one she had before....and just to top it off....glass slippers.

All of the crying in the garden, the step-sisters and step-mother's mean motives, and the unmet expectations all vanished in seconds. She was going to get to go to the ball all along....she just got to stand back and witness all that was done for her.

In some weird way...I kind of felt like God was speaking to me through this. (work with me here, He knows that I am very familiar with fairy tales)

I feel like I had my dress on. I was excited and ready to go to the ball. However, at midnight on June 12th, I felt like the dress of expectancy and hope was ripped to shreds. My chances of going to that ball, to see Caroline healed, were gone. Now I feel like I am sitting in that garden crying, devastated, and wondering what to do next. I felt God saying to me. "You are still going to the ball, Andrea. I am still going to come and work my magic. It will be way better than just that pretty dress you had on before. The entire world around you will change and all of this pain will seem like nothing. And unlike Cinderella, you won't have to worry about the stroke of midnight looming over you. What I change.......stays changed!"

Some of you are probably thinking I am crazy. Me too! Could God really speak through this?? I don't know entirely. But I do know I was encouraged. My spirit was lifted. I shared it with Shep this morning and I really thought he would laugh at me. Instead he said, "You ought to write that down. That is really good."

So I took his advice.