BTHO Cancer Party

I have many, MANY pictures from my big btho cancer party.  Instead of posting them all on this blog,  HERE is the link to our family blog that documented the whole thing.  We wanted to beat the hell outta cancer, and we did it!!!! {I say "we" because winning this battle was not done by one person.  It took an army of supporters to help me make it through to the other side.}

Thank you for all the love, support, words of encouragement, faith, service, concern, prayers, donations, and happy thoughts.  I would not have made it through this journey being able to see the tender mercies and silver linings without all of you.  I hope to pay this love and support forward when some of you have your own battles to fight. 

There will be times when each of us is faced with something that turns our world upside down.  Remember that during these times of trial, these storms in life, we are being tested.  We have much to learn and many ways in which to grow.  When we face the storms with faith and not fear, we come out stronger.  Without the tests, we cannot prove to ourselves and to The Lord who we are and what we have become.  Some storms come and go quickly, leaving sunshine and rainbows behind. Some storms beat upon us and never seem to cease.  Either way, we can look for silver linings and learn to find the light, even when the skies seem dark.

And, when it's hard to dance, just remember that these challenging times in life are making us stronger and more able to withstand future storms.  

 

Good Timber

by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain, 

 
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil, 

 
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength. 

 
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both. 

 

 

 And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.