For A Reason Intro

Dedication:

To Meghann Hawkins- Lutz

For finding me when no one else was looking.

And, to my late Grandpa, Charlie for always loving me.

For A Reason

By: Cindy Renee

INTRO-

Her life had never been easy.  Now, to say that doesn’t mean that she had the HARDEST life anyone’s ever had… It just meant that she didn’t grow up with everything handed to her, and she didn’t grow up with everyone accepting her.  She had sickness, and not so much health.  She had dreams, but a lot of them went unrealized for a long time.  She didn’t have many friends in school. She was rejected time after time.  Life wasn’t fair.  But Alexandria Renee Hartley was a survivor.  But still, she couldn’t always do everything that everybody else could.  She sometimes felt she couldn’t trust people because of the actions of a few people she went to school with.  But, finally, someone had come along and asked her into their club, she had a friend.  And suddenly, her world opened up because this one girl took a chance on her.  Because of that action, Ali learned for the first time how to trust people. And slowly but surely, she started gaining friends and confidence.   And with every struggle she went through, she learned some new lessons for herself, and learned a little more about the people in her world.  She learned who she could and couldn’t trust.  She learned to pray ardently.  She learned to live her dreams.  She learned to write, which became her world.  It took a while before anyone really noticed her talent for writing and encouraged it.  Oddly enough-or maybe not- the same person who risked their popularity to invite her to play at recess that fateful day, was the same person to first take an interest in Ali’s writing.  She liked what her best friend wrote and encouraged her to keep doing it.  So, Ali did. 

Ali was a dreamer, and now, finally, some of her dreams were coming true.  She had wished so hard for these things-prayed about them and talked about them constantly so everybody knew what she wanted.  The only thing she didn’t have- was a guy.  See, Ali was one of those girls that had been planning their Big Day since she was a kid.  Her childhood was spent being sick and lying on the couch in the living room of her house-watching the world go by with her powerless to do anything about it.  Life was a bit depressing, so to combat that, she dreamed, and these dreams became the beginnings of her wedding dreams and her novels.  Her mom encouraged her to read.  So, Ali wrote everything down.  At this point in her life though, she was a grown up.  Sure, she was a YOUNG grown up, but still… Ali wasn’t going after guys, and she was content NOT having a boyfriend for her high school and college years, but now, she was twenty-two and graduating.  She knew she was still young, and maybe still a little young to be thinking marriage, but she couldn’t help it. Marriage and the want of a relationship was constantly on her heart and mind.  But there was something that set her apart from other empty-headed people: Ali believed that she WOULD one day be married.  She KNEW she would be.  And so, she wasn’t worried.  But sometimes, her faith waned a bit when she got frustrated with her life, like last year- when she had a major surgery and could have died.  But something told her not to give up-so, she listened to some love songs, bought a bridal magazine, and started writing her first novel.  And that is where this story begins.