Thanks for sharing more of your story with us. Also, thank you for your thoughts about hope and the reminder of how other people helped you find hope again.

Jolene

My dream was so amazing. Everyone was so kind, gentle, and understanding. They cared enough about me that they were willing to work with the medical challenges without making them a “big deal”. And even while they did that they recognized that it IS a big deal. I know that doesn’t make sense…it’s just that they worked with the challenges because they knew it was important and yet they let me just be a teenager, and not a “patient”.

There was also an amazing feeling of being able to choose. If I wanted to I could walk in the snow. If I wanted to I could play pool. I COULD. And more I could CHOOSE!!! So many times in my life I have no choice. I have to do so many things, and be so adult-like in many areas many teens don’t have too. And so when I get to CHOOSE to do something (even if I don’t have a choice in some of my medical things) it felt wonderfully freeing.

Before my dream I was beginning to think that life was just too much for me, and I couldn’t keep going. People didn’t understand and they didn’t want to. My friends were great but I just was running out of hope for the future. After going to MT I realized that there is hope. It snuck in slowly…first I knew that there was hope in MT but I still didn’t think that in FL where it was too hot to be outside (because of health)for six months out of the year that I had no hope until I could move away. Well the trip ended and the plane landed in good old FL. I must admit I began to cry, about being in a place that hurt so much. as we were walking out of the terminal I saw a woman cleaning, she was so sad and depressed feeling. I felt so sorry for here in the midst of my pain at being “home”. I gave her my “brave” smile trying to cheer her and trying to cheer me too. She smiled so big back that a rush of love and hope sprung through me. God’s hope.

That is when I realized that any where God is there is hope. And I can experience the hope he has given me. And I can share that hope with others by simply smiling.

I am proud to say that before my trip I felt hopeless. BUT God used snow, horse, and the most AMAZING people to show me there is hope. And I will hold onto that hope through everything I will experience.

Thank you to everyone who made my dream come true. And thank you to all my friends and family for supporting me through my sad and happy times. But most of all THANK YOU GOD FOR YOUR HOPE!!!!

Thanks,
Jolene

What an amazing trip it was to Big Sky Country, Montana! Winter wanted to “ride horses in the snow” … and that’s where Dreams Come True sent us. Amazing!

The trip was so much more than just about going somewhere fun (I used to be skeptical of these kinds of wish-granting organizations, sigh; experience is a tough teacher sometimes).

Winter’s dream trip was truly a time of seeing love, compassion and the human touch in a world outside the medical field. Everyone we encountered who gave so deeply, didn’t have to be kind and generous. It wasn’t their job … it was their heart.

And it touched Winter in a way that encourages her to see the world differently … There is such joy in seeing through snowflake-covered lenses!

And the comfort is … as we’ve been reassured by Dreams Come True … “Once a dreamer, always a dreamer.” They stay in touch with us and have invited us to go to places like the circus, too.

A support system of a different kind, for families with different dreams.

Thank you, Jolene! And God bless all the dreamers!

Suzanne