I cried on the football field.
And all it took was 15 balloons.
I honestly do not have any words to describe where I'm at or how I feel. Truth tells me that Christ is right here - and I believe. I know He is here, holding me, carrying me and giving me the strength to persevere in a time that I am so weak. A friend reminded me of this Friday night as I was very close to a full-on "come-apart."
I couldn't allow myself to come apart as I had a huge creative task ahead of me. Getting three days of main art for the newspaper out of one event. The Relay for Life.
I haven't covered one of those in probably four years. The last time I did I was a wreck after having lost a dear friend to the disease. Typically a loss of a loved one spurs one on in such events. I don't know why, but for me I tend to shy away. Not that I don't desperately hope for a cure to be found or more money raised to help those who have cancer. I was just very much still raw. I'm still raw. Especially after learning of another dear friend's diagnosis of lung cancer just the day before.
And so I held myself together - talking to people, taking pictures, getting names, thinking ahead to the next three issues of the paper and how images will go together and all the technical stuff that rolls around in my head when shooting.
And then there was little Logan Miller. A 10-year-old with an infectious smile, sweet spirit, a huge heart, and leukemia. A boy who was ready to walk proudly in the survivors lap - but not just for himself. For his friend Matthew that he met in the hospital who also had leukemia. Matthew was 15 when he lost his battle to the disease this past October. And so Logan not just walked for himself but also carried 15 purple balloons - one for each year of Matthew's life and a white balloon symbolizing his death.
How wonderful and sweet to carry on the memory of a friend and keep fighting a battle in the face of losing one so dear to the very same battle.
After talking with Logan, that's when it hit and I just had to walk away as I fought back the tears. The sight of his precious little smile and the balloons that floated in the breeze overhead. It was all too much.
I was once told that emotions are like pandora's box. You can hold them in, box them up, keep on truckin' yet once the lid comes of - even off a corner - they all come out.
And that they did. Right there on the football field.
I'm thankful for sunglasses : )
So in the midst of all that has happened these past two weeks, of which I truly don't have the energy to write about on here, I found that my thoughts returned to a friend who recently suffered a devastating loss. In the midst of it, she told me that she wanted to learn from it. She wanted to know what God wanted to teach her in that time. Even though there was great sorrow, pain and sheer hurt - she knew God had a purpose for the pain.
God always has a purpose.
I can recall a time I was so deep in depression that all I could literally do was lay in bed and repeatedly cry out to Jesus. This went on for days. His name was all I could get out. I know in that time the Holy Spirit was interceding on my behalf.
He is interceding now.
So 15 balloons brought me back down. Stopped me in my tracks and forced me to let it all out. And also reminded me that in reality my problems aren't that great.
And when I am weak - He is strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Hardly anything can beat early morning cartoons and bedhead!! Sure signs of Summer!
Summer is such a sweet time!!
