I can't believe it has already been almost a week since the Relay for Life! I have been busy being a taxi cab driver this week. Nathan has been going to day camp at Camp Geneva so we've been making a couple trips a day out there. It has been so wonderful though hearing about how much fun Nathan is having that I would drive twice as much if necessary! Ashley has been at camp since Monday morning and won't be coming home until Saturday morning. This cutting the apron strings thing never gets any easier!
The relay was again a wonderful experience. I made it the entire 24 hours this year! I wasn't awake the entire time (thanks to a sleeping pill) but I stayed the entire time. I walked, visited with friends & family, rested, cried, ate (too much) food, cried some more, reflected on the past and was encouraged by survivors. So far over $150,000 has been raised! I am already planning on attending next year and the year after that, and the year after that . . .
I've been reading back over the blog and am always shocked at everything that we have endured. I have forgotten about so much which is good but at the same time I don't ever want to forget. I want to always be grateful for every day that I wake up and for every battle that God brought us through.
There were some battles that didn't make sense and I don't know that we really won them. What I do know is that the final battle has already been won and that is all that really matters. It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day stress and forget what our main priority here on this temporary earth is.
At the beginning of this journey I told everyone to put their sunglasses on cuz God was going to shine bright through me. He has done that more than I could have even imagined. For those of you that don't know me, I am probably one of the most extremely anxious, always worrying person with a very, very low tolerance for pain. Knowing this makes God's light seem so much brighter.
God isn't done shining through me yet (and I hope He never is). In addition to His shining, I need to start doing some shining of my own. I need to get out of my comfy little routine and quit using the cancer card (yup, I'm still using it). I have a survivor story to share (not only cancer but eternal life) with anyone that will listen.
Recently I've noticed some changes in myself. I've been a people please all my life and it's really getting tiresome. I also realized that the way I'm trying to please people is how I would be pleased and I'm actually probably ticking them off! I've heard that once you hit 40 you finally start to become more comfortable with yourself and start worrying less about what people think of you. Although I'm not quite 40 yet (5 months, 3 weeks and 6 days to go) I am starting to understand that concept.
At risk of making this a very long post (shocker, I know) I need to publicly apologize to Brian. I have always given him a hard time about how he is constantly listening to music. We have a radio and unnecessarily large speaker in every single room of the house (yes, even the bathroom). I prefer things to be "quiet". He has also been known to break into dance at any given moment. Every time he does this I will put four fingers up with my left hand and a zero with my right hand (to remind him that he is 40 - not the 20 year old rock star he is acting like).
Well, today I put on Toby Mac (once I figured out how to get i-tunes going on my computer and how to get the surround sound speakers working). I turned the music up loud (no one else was home) and I sang and danced (loudly and badly) while I cleaned the kitchen. Go figure, I had fun cleaning the kitchen. I felt very upbeat and positive and happy. I guess my husband is pretty smart after all. Maybe next time he starts dancing I will have to try joining him instead of mocking him. Okay so I'll stop mocking him but I'm not sure I'm up to having a witness to my dancing yet . . . maybe some day.
