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Sherri Stewart

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE NOVEL

The Wonder of Forrest Gump

The Wonder of Forrest Gump

July 7, 2017

Have you ever had that sensation where you hear some new word or name or anything, and then it pops up several times within a day or so? When that happens you wonder if that new thing was always there but you hadn't paid attention to it?

That sensation happened to me in the last week or so. I've been writing a book called A Good Little Nurse, and since I spent three weeks with my mother, who is a retired nurse, I thought I'd pick her brain, since I'm clueless when it comes to nursing. It wasn't easy because her memory isn't as sharp as it used to be, but she told me story after story about her experiences as a student nurse. It occurred to me that my mom has led an extraordinary life.

One night we watched Forrest Gump. Here was an ordinary person, just like my mother, and he was a witness of or a participant in extraordinary events. The comparison between the two of them resonated with me as I traveled back to Florida. Certainly, my mother didn't meet President Johnson, but she was mistaken for Mrs. Nixon at a hotel (that was her name) and put in the presidential suite with secret service guarding her door. She didn't have a clue. She didn't carry soldiers on her shoulders like Lieutenant Dan, but she cut off a man's arm to save him from crushing his head in a press.

My first week back at church, guess what the theme was? Heroes-ordinary people who do extraordinary things! Some people would call that a coincidence, but I call it a God-thing. In the Bible, it was referred to as a "double witness," a legal concept that required two witness to convict a suspect of a crime.

One last thing--have you ever seen a person in a crowd that resembles someone you know, and then you see other people that look like the same person? That happens to me all the time. I consider it a prompt to pray for that person. Call me naive. I just prefer providence to coincidence. What are your thoughts?

 

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