Thankful

Once again, we were the recipients of extraordinary generosity. Yesterday, we attended yet another benefit to help lessen the additional financial burden that comes with our situation.  Once again, it was humbling to see the willingness of everyone to help and attend... we are so thankful!

Yesterday I enjoyed seeing a lot of people that I haven't seen since we moved. I also met some new people (thank you for supporting me, even though you don't know me). We were surprised to show up and find that so many family members had traveled from hours away to attend and help out. And I had the pleasure of visiting with some dear friends. I know I have the best friends a girl could possibly have. Friends that have given of so much over the past few months to lessen my burden. Dear friends who worked so hard in organizing yesterdays event. Friends who showed up to support me and give me hugs! I can't even think of the right word to describe how I feel... but blessed and thankful is about as close as I can get, but it is more then that.

It's hard to imagine that just a couple of short months ago, I set foot on a journey I knew would be hard. A journey I started with tears in my eyes, a heavy weight in my heart and horribly scary thoughts running through my mind. I never imagined that this journey would also entail as many blessings as we have seen. It almost seems counter intuitive to be going thru cancer and yet being able to lay my head down on my pillow every night with so much to be thankful for and feeling so blessed at the end of my day.

I'm not very good at memorizing scripture, but at the beginning of this journey there were a couple of Bible verses that kept running thru my head. One of these was Romans 8:28 which reads "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.". I wanted so much to claim this verse and I finally got to the point where I did, in faith. I didn't doubt God's ability to work good from a bad situation. I didn't doubt that I love God. I doubted that I could be called to God's purpose. Did I really have anything to offer that could be used for God's purpose. I mean God is a big God. What could I possibly bring to the table for His purpose? I wanted to believe I was called, I really wanted to be called, but honestly, I felt too insignificant and unworthy to be called.

The further I've gotten into this journey, the more I realize how selfish my interpretation of Romans 8:28 has been my entire life. God doesn't promise that just because I'm a Christian He will wave his magic wand over my bad situations and "POOF", it's happily ever after. His promise is He will work "all things" for the good of those who love him. Now I'm not a theologian, so I may be way off base, but I am starting to see that God working all things together for good is working the totality of ALL situations. Not just mine, not just yours, but everybody's situations together. So an individual situation may turn out good, bad, or somewhere in between. But we are promised that all of these situations are orchestrated together by God to make the overall picture good.

As believers, what should be our purpose? To bring glory to God! So even if our personal situation has a sad or tragic ending, that ending will be used by God in his orchestrated plan to bring Him glory, which is good. This makes us called according to God's purpose... serving as an instrument to bring Him glory. Each one of us are singular instruments, that alone, may not sound all the great, but in totality with God's plan and all His other instruments, a beauty and goodness is orchestrated to bring glory to God.