relay for a cure.

katie. we know our friendship. we know how deep it goes and how real it is. so with that i will simply thank you for making this happen. raising over $2,000, selling shirts, organizing, and inviting people not only onto a team but moving towards a place where cancer will hopefully one day not exist.
i love you.

***

i was nervous for this relay. i even cried about it twice. not sure how i felt about going to my first official cancer event. i guess a little sad that a teamlibby even exists. but with that i am grateful for people and the community we have around us...but still a deep wound that screams inside me..."i do not want to be on this team."  but i think i have come to place where my moments of sadness can exist right alongside my joy, thankfulness, and need to celebrate. i am also on a team of survivors. people who fought like i did...many who lived and many who did not. either way we all fought. that is what this relay represented for me. our story is one of survival and of life...a deeper and fuller life.

i have had the hardest time writing this because i am still not sure how i feel. i am thankful that this weekend was not full of tears. it was much easier than i had anticipated but it has still left me at a place i am unable to explain. i am just not sure why it is still so hard. i can not seem to find the words. i realize it goes without saying that my heart dove right back into cancer and our fight and where we are now...i just feel like i have not arrived anywhere really. maybe that is normal. if i ever arrived i would stop growing and changing and evolving into the woman i am still becoming. the aim is not arrival. but the in between. which can be fuzzy and unclear and i am not the best in this place. i would say i am less of a black and white thinker...as i tend to be more comfortable in the grey. so i guess i will embrace the grey and live in it and keep learning. i am thankful for how Jesus keeps using cancer to stretch me and challenge me and work on me from the inside out.

relay for life was humbling. it was humbling to see people come together (most i met for the first time on friday night) rally around our family and support out of their own place with cancer. thank you.
it was a night to remember our story. how the Lord is using it and how it continues to change our family forever. in that there was pain and brokenness as it took me back to august 2010. but from that place it took my heart to a place of joy and immense thankfulness. thank for rallying alongside us and the american cancer society and fighting for a cure.

the entire track was lined with luminaries and different names. i know that this night was one of intense sorrow and pain for those who have lost someone close to them from cancer. my heartaches for you in that and reminds me to continue to fight towards living in a place of thankfulness. thankfulness for everyday and thankful for how our story ended. that the luminary with my name on it...was about remembering where we have been, where we are going, and how if we choose...if we are able...we don't have to waste our cancer. i am certainly glad we didn't waste ours.

sweet becca. thank you for giving me a glimpse of what life is really all about it. we share the same joy...but i crave to live in it the way you do everyday. i love you.

in the end there is hope. hope for a cure. hope for a world without cancer. without pain. without lose. where relay for life wont need to exist anymore. but until then we will fight, raise money, and continue the research necessary to find a cure.

***thank you girls for hosting the ryder family and anne stewart for giving up your bedroom so ava had a dark place to sleep. we loved our time with your whole house.***