Shooting for the Moon

           What if, when you shoot for the Moon, instead of landing among the stars you don't even make it there?  You get stuck in a tree, and the branches block out even a view of the Moon and the stars.  You try to cut the branches away but to no avail because you don't have the tools to do it.  You keep trying and trying until eventually you give up.  

            Suddenly, a charming man comes into your life and chops the branches away.  You can finally see the Moon and the stars again; there's hope!  But time goes by, the branches begin growing back, and that man isn't with you anymore, not helping to cut down the branches.  The Moon and the stars are gone once again.  All seems lost once more.  

           But one day a different man comes and helps you out of the tree.  Even though you are back to where you started, you can start over again.  And this time things might just be right.  This man may be the one you've been waiting for, the one who can help you shoot for the Moon and succeed.

Fate

     

    
     I've been, recently especially, thinking about how "lucky" it was that my boyfriend Marshall and I met...but "lucky" isn't the right word.  I truly believe it was fate.  All the hardships I went through and the decisions I made in high school and afterward (deciding where to go to college, what to major in, my reunion and then break-up with my ex-boyfriend Charlie) all led straight to Marshall.  If even one little aspect of the path leading to meeting Marshall was out of place, then we quite possibly would have never met!  My decision to go to Stevens Point for college, the timing of my break-up with Charlie and the heartbreak that caused me to join eHarmony just in time before Marshall gave up on it, and then once I was on eHarmony there were tons of matches and somehow Marshall found me...so many little details went into this.  It's such an amazingly, intricately beautiful miracle of Fate.

      "God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you."  Those Rascal Flatts lyrics really make sense to me now.  Everything I went through--all the loneliness, envy, desperate dreaming, and heartbreak--was worth it because it brought me the best gift of all: my true love. 

     People can call me a sappy romantic if they want and claim that what I believe is merely dreamy make believe, but I will always and ardently believe that true love exists and that God will lead you to this special individual who was made just for you.  And when that happens, your world will never be the same. 

     When I look into my true love's eyes, I am overcome with a wondrous sense of awe.  Whenever I look into Marshall's eyes, seeing and loving both his flaws and his qualities, I believe I'm catching a glimpse of God, of eternity, of true beauty and purity.  "When we love rightly, some mortal being can become a window through which higher dimensions of reality shine forth."  It's not just a shift of perspective; it's a whole new reality...a reality of true love like you've never felt before.  A love so strong and eternal that both amazes you/fills you with joy but also frightens you with its startling intensity.  It's like loving God.  I think this love is actually a love for God.  He led you to your true love, so He lives within this individual, and the unconditional love you share with your lover can spread to others so that they can find their true loves...their glimpses of God.  Because after all, "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16b).