It has been about three years since I have blogged. Time has flown by and the one thing that I can attest to is that Faith has been a constant in my life. Where do I begin? I can’t tell everything there is to tell about how God has walked with me on this journey of life. To do so would make this a book and not a blog. What I will tell you is that through the many trials, times of sadness, and the many persecutions we have endured, God has kept us. He has remained faithful to all of us.
No matter what it looks like or what it felt like, we made it through. Having the courage to keep going, fighting, standing, and pressing is a prayer that I pray daily. Here recently within this past year, we have lost some dear friends and loved ones. The majority were unexpected losses and some not even living to see their 50th birthday. One in particular left behind a husband and three kids at the age of 44. One week she’s going in for a routine doctor appointment with a concern of coughing and some back pain. She’s given a short amount of time to live and a diagnosis that no 44 year old wife and mother want to hear. Stage 4 cancer that is a rare cancer and the prognosis is not good. I can’t imagine her thoughts. A week? Two weeks? What are you saying? I won’t see my kids finish growing up? I won’t be there to see my sons eventually become husbands and my daughter graduate high school? How can that be? I only came in for what I thought could be asthma. Not this.
The pain and agony I know the family is feeling now is too horrific. She was such a beautiful person inside and out. I haven’t seen her in decades but I grew up with her. We went to school together and our families are interconnected. Where I come from we would call her family—a distant cousin so to speak. The one thing I know that since she has passed, more people have picked up the phone and called their long lost friends. They have texted and vowed to stay connected no matter how busy life can become. The day the news hit, communities across the Cayce and West Columbia areas were hit with a blow. The earth quaked that day because no flower as pretty as our Tammy could have caused the rippling affects in our hearts. There are certain things that connect us all whether we have not seen a person or not spoken with them in decades. These bonds can never be broken and it’s because of love, community, and childhood memories. It’s the pure thoughts and childhood innocence that keeps our hearts knitted together. I know I have called and texted many and I still have a list to go. My goal is to be more intentional. Love a little harder, laugh louder, and live a little more. I don’t want to waste time on the minuscule things that tend to weigh us down. I want to do as we were instructed to do by the author of Hebrews 12:1-2
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV
https://www.bible.com/114/heb.12.1-2.nkjv
Walking By Faith 