Happy Valentine's Day!

Today is Valentine's Day and I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband to be my loving Valentine and three little munchkins to be my silly Valentines! Throughout the day today I kept thinking about the story we heard at Hosanna church yesterday. (On a side note, we are on a mission to find a local church to become members at and yesterday we visited Hosanna. We were concerned the church would feel too large and contemporary but we were actually very pleased with the experience. They had an amazing band that played christian music in the beginning - the kids loved this! - and the service itself had a wonderful message. We will definitely visit again to see if this is the church for us.)

Now, back to the story...the message was one about love and faith. A husband and wife told their love story. It started off with the usual boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy asks out girl and boy and girl get married. After the husband was finished providing a background to their story, the wife got up and spoke. She has terminal cancer and has less than 1 yr to live. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998 and was in remission until 4 years ago when her cancer came back and has since spread to her liver. The amazing part of this story was listening to the woman describe how her faith in the Lord has helped with tiny miracles so far. Her belief and trust in God has helped her to overcome her fear. She said when she feels sad or angry she says four things: I am thankful. I am joyful. I am humble. I am prayerful. These four phrases have helped her time and time again. I was amazed at her strength and ability to see the good in her disease rather than the negative. She ended her message with reminding people to live the life they want. Don't waste time - time is limited for everyone. This is so true. I always think I will have more time tomorrow, or next week, or next month. But this may not always be the case.

I wanted to share her story because it was such a positive message to have faith, love and believe in the Lord's plan for you. I want to try and live my life with her positive attitude and I will start by remembering her four phrases: I am thankful. I am joyful. I am humble. I am prayerful.

Happy Valentine's to all. Hug your loved ones today and live your life to the fullest!