Thank You

After preparing so many things for my wedding day, I have taken a minute to stop and ponder on what is truly happening. It's humbling and a sweet joy to get to know more of my Heavenly Father and His Son through this process.

Many of you may know the life I led from four to twenty-four years old. It's dark, confusing, traumatic and seemingly hopeless. Thanks for the angels on earth who helped me walk away from that, I learned how to turn to Heavenly Father without resentment and pain.

Learning to keep my chin up and keep running has changed my life. I'm not the best at it but I sure do try. I've fallen quite a bit, that's for sure. And many of those were doozies where I thought there was no repair good enough. Not only did I learn that is not true, I learned that I'm still being blessed through it all. When I look back, I see that Christ never turned His back on me; He never pulled His hand away. He held me and consoled me. When I was at my worst and made mistakes that I feel I shouldn't have, He was there even when I wouldn't forgive myself, crying with me, holding me and helping me back up.

Through all the falling, Heavenly Father helped me live a miracle--finding a man who found me right back. The simplest prompting followed and I knew Spencer would be a part of my life. A few more promptings and I knew Spencer could be The One. I've still fallen along the way but that never changed His help and I continued being blessed and guided and I got back up again. This time, I had my best friend and man of my dreams running right with me.

Why am I so blessed through all my mistakes and failures? Why am I this lucky? It's something I ask myself whenever I see Spencer looking back at me. Then the answer comes: Christ made this possible because He loves me and knows who I really am and has made it possible for me to get back up and become that person. Now I get to become that person with this miracle and blessing by my side.

I never would have thought, five years ago or earlier, that I would be preparing to marry the greatest friend I've ever had and the man of my {most ridiculous, long-shot} dreams in eleven days. I know this is a blessing from God because He was the one who helped me find this miracle. It wouldn't have happened without Him and I know this special day will be the greatest day of my life. Together, Spencer and I will continue to fall, get up, dust it off and keep running to become something greater. That's The Plan. I'm seeing more and more how sweet, fun, surprising, merciful and happy That Plan is and how welcome I am to live it.

There are no words that can be expressed (and it's silly to be on a blog) so, from the depth of my soul, I say, 'Thank you.'