Sister of my heart

I've been slackin' a little in my Blogworld-buddy visiting duties the last couple of weeks. Mainly because I've completed so many college scholarship applications, I can't count them. And let me say for the record that if I don't win a single one of the 30 or so I have submitted, I'm going to have a MAJOR crisis.
I may lay down on the floor and kick my feet and cry.
Then I'll get up and say "Your Will be done, Father!"
Because He will have something else in store for me.

Anyway, I tagged my buddy Connie to do the "Five Reasons I Blog" meme, so I figured I ought to go read it, you know, just out of courtesy. Cuz I made her do all that typing...wore her little fingers down to the knuckles.
And I discovered that she had already done a TON of typing on this post, the story of her three year anniversary of the end of her world.

I read it and I was sick to my stomach. Not only over what my dear friend had to go through...but because it sounded SO like what I went through! I can feel my heart pounding harder and feel the confusion as you think to yourself "No, seriously, this cannot be real. There is no way my husband could do that. There has to be some mistake. Somebody DO something. What Aliens came and took my husband and put this monster who looks just like him here to hurt us? I don't understand...I don't understand...I don't understand."
The first day it happened, they act like you are a criminal, too. They separated me from my kids and I was so frightened they weren't going to give them back! They took my foster baby away without even letting me kiss her goodbye! I don't think I have ever been that scared in my life. Ever. When people do meme's or quizzes that ask the question "What are you afraid of?" I truly say...Nothing. I have been scared beyond belief. After that day, everything else pales in comparison!
And Connie has felt that same fear. She lived it a little over a year before I did. And she has come through with flying colors. Amazing!

I want to state here and for the eternal record that nothing in the last two years has been such a wonderful blessing to my heart as finding this amazing woman who knows exactly how I feel. When other people look at me like I'm insane... She's there.
When "friends" and family tell me they are tired of hearing about it...She's there.
When no one understands why I can't just "Put it behind me and move on"...Connie understands.

When she told me her story, I thought she had been reading my blog and was copying me or something. Seriously! Then, as we talked more, I discovered she and I have many of the same interests and dreams. As I sat crying for joy at the computer, MG says "Maybe you two are twins separated at birth!"

So I just want to say Thank you to the "sister of my heart" for her mentoring, her prayers and for showing me that...Yes, I WILL survive.
Someone else has been there. And she ROCKS!
My prayer is that someday I can help someone like she has helped me to heal.

God has used you, Connie. Your little light definitely brightened up my corner of the world.