thank goodness someone else can verbalize it

Article from Relevant:

"Lately, life has been overwhelming and incomprehensible, and it scares me. I’m afraid to even have a plan or a dream because I’m afraid of being wrong. I’ve been wrong so much lately it seems. I don’t know as much about what I want as I think.

My compassion occasionally grants people the right to walk all over me. My ambition sometimes chokes my relationships, because I forget to slow down and really see people. My goal of excellence pushes me too far, and before I know it I’m expecting perfection from others and myself. My optimism causes me to be hurt by life’s disappointments and failures. My feisty character sometimes causes me to say or do things I regret later. My thirst for knowledge often turns to arrogance. My desire to be known sometimes causes me to act self-important. My self-consciousness prompts me to hide. My independent spirit sometimes alienates people when I actually really need them.

It seems like lately I’ve been erring on the wrong side of my personality, like life is all leaning in one direction, like gravity is pulling me downward when I’d really like to learn how to fly. I’m discovering more and more flaws, more and more things I need to work through.

And I cry out to God to heal me, to give me wisdom in the complexities of life, to grant me the courage and humility to apologize, to allow me to see myself truthfully. Yet, I’m still wrong sometimes. I hurt other people. I hurt myself. I hurt God.

It’s never made sense to me that God would guide me to be wrong. So, I’m surprised at how often I muddle up the things I feel very strongly that God has led me to do. But, at the same time, I don’t regret any fumbled steps. I know God was there with me for each stagger. Maybe it’s possible for God to guide us to do things even though He knows we’re going to flounder and blunder our way through it. Maybe that’s what God’s grace looks like—it fills the gap between our bumpy, messy lives and His glory.

My faults, my failures, my fumbles and my messes … That is where the glory of God comes in and illuminates, not for the sake of my knowing or understanding life, but for my seeing the greatness of God.

Maybe my mistake is in thinking I have to look like porcelain in order for God’s glory to be evident. Maybe I actually have to allow myself to be seen as the mess I really am. Because in my weaknesses, in the cracks in the porcelain, others may see the power and goodness of God."

--Rebecca Mayer

must...stay...awake

so i'm killing time till i have to go back to relay for life at midnight for my graveyard shift for a few more hours.

here is a picture from me and barbara after our survivor lap....my first year as a survivor!

quote of the night: (as the survivors are standing in line to get our free banquet of food)

"well, we lose our hair...pay thousands of dollars in medical bills...but at least they repay us with a sash and a ton of really good free food! Haha......they probably think we are all still on steroids and have the munchies..."

other good ones from this weird week:

"This is my new cat. His name is Squish and he has one eye." (Older lady I went to visit).

"I know they say you are supposed to respect your elders, but it is getting harder and harder to find any!" (Old man at a health fair)

easter

was good this year.

partly because we made it through the weekend without any hospital visits.

partly because i purposefully guarded enough time to really try and reflect throughout the weekend about the incredible-ness that is the cross.
good friday served sufficiently to kick me in my face with the overwhelming amount of ugliness that comes way too naturally to me. JI Packer writes that,

"Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that he owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own self effort, that they themselves have found life."

it surely is only by his grace that he has chosen me for some odd reason. but i am extremely thankful that he did.

the weekend was spent with my whole crazy southern family down at edisto...pretty much doing nothing but eating because it was too cold to go fishing. :) it also included some much needed time with mom and dad assuring me that no, i'm not crazy... that its okay that i don't have my whole career planned out yet...that 22 years old is much too young to "fail at life" (okay so i was being dramatic)...and that no, they don't mind that i still need taking care of and they actually enjoy helping me stumble forward into my future... because thats what parents do when they love their children.

oh. and i got to play with my dog.

but perhaps the highlight of the weekend was when in the middle of the church service on sunday morning (in a pretty conservative baptist church on the island), a little boy with down's syndrome stood up with his arms raised and yelled "YAY FOR EASTER!!!!!" and the whole church broke into loud applause and "amens". it sort of felt like a movie or something because the moment was almost too perfect to be real. really, we should all be that excited that jesus has risen that we want to yell about it...even after easter is over.

so...YAY FOR EASTER

on my desk calendar yesterday,

the quote for the day was "The love of a genuine, patient and true friend gives us one small glimpse of what it will be like to be with God for all eternity"

and strangely enough, God sent a dear friend out of the blue to refresh me yesterday in the middle of the week. she doesn't live here and i miss her. our friendship is....comfortable. honest. it feels sort of like coming back home. we have seen each other at our worst (when we are complaining or irritable... or worse) and we still love each other. she encourages me to be a better person...a more godly person.

and we had dinner and fell asleep talking about how weird it is that we are supposedly adults now.

it was wonderful. and i needed it to get through the week.

thanks for the visit...i love you! :)

better than a birthday

happy cancer-versary to me! :)

Bridge Run 2006 vs. Bridge Run 2007

so.....we are all still recovering from the bridge run on saturday. or at least i am. my body is apparently fairly angry at me for forcing it to run 6.2 miles. :)
but, i did manage to cut a few minutes off my time from last year so i was happy.

the only thing i could think of while i was running was where i was a year ago.

the day before the bridge run last year, i had my biopsy done on my thryoid. the doctor had told me that i could still run (as long as i "didn't try to beat the kenyans or anything"...ha). so i ran my very first bridge run last year...with a bandaid on my throbbing neck and wondering if i had cancer or not. two days later on april 3rd, i got a phone call telling me that yes, in fact, i did.

the weeks that followed leading into easter 2006 seem like a blur. i don't think we even celebrated easter at all actually....cancer surgeries, a death, and a heart attack hailstormed down on our family within the same week...so much so that we stayed on a constant sense of alert waiting for the next bad thing to happen throughout the rest of the year.

during this years bridge run i couldn't help but thank the Lord for bringing me and my family through all of that mess somehow. 2007 has been a lot better....not easy, but better.
i am cancer free.
it doesn't get old no matter how many times i say that. :)
The Lord does not promise that we never will go through rough times but he is faithful to bring us out of them.

"But now thus says the LORD,he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you..." Isaiah 43: 1-4