THANKFUL!

I can not begin to tell you how thankful I am for all that God has done for me.  It is amazing what can occur and transpire throughout the course of a year.  This year has proved to be very challenging for me but I thank God for it all.  Last year this time I had gotten my first chemotherapy treatment for a cancerous tumor that was removed from my breast.  I remember feeling so alone and depressed.  There is nothing worse than feeling alone when you are surrounded by people who love you.  Well, that is that place that I was at....... BROKE!!!  Broke both spiritually and financially, BUT GOD!!  In the midst of me receiving all of these different medications to assure that I was Cancer free, I acquired a condition that affects my eyes, called Uvetis.  It was literally as if trouble was all around me.  I felt like I was in a tunnel and the lights were off............. their was no end in sight.  When I was physically alone, I cried like and baby but when others were around I kept quiet and smiled.  For a long time and even now there are a number of people who had no idea what I was going through.  I am such a strong person and that is what people see me as, and I refused to be anything less.  I was afraid of all the press that my illness would get from people in the street and more than that, of those who would speak death instead of life.  I am a firm believer that you can't share your life with everyone because their are negative people who's mind frame is just as damaging as a gun.


I thank God for His word and the vessels that he uses and for my ability to receive.  I remember one day I was in my room crying and my son came in.  He looked at me and said, "mama please don't die, me and Daja need you to raise us".  He made me realize that I needed to fight and that I had to.  After me and Zay finished talking, I got up and took a bath and during that bath I cried and I prayed.  I asked God to clean me!! To wash away all of that doubt!!  Then I promised God that I would be a better person if it was His will that I live through this situation.  I begin to change my attitude and be more positive from that day forward.  Now I am not going to lie and say that my life changed over night but I begin to feel better.  I felt better because I begin to appreciate the people around me, who loved me.  I begin to see all the things I had to be happy for.  I could identify with the fact my situation could be worse........  When I tell you that a positive attitude is just as important to your health as medication, YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!!!  


Now during the course of this year, I have found so much to be thankful for; my God, my family, my friends, healing, happiness but most of all..........THIS JOURNEY!  This Journey has changed my life in ways that I never imagined.  I have become a greater woman all because of it.  I have learned to trust God.  I learned that you have to be open to receiving the love that people have for you.  I learned the value of my smile and that it is tied to the happiness of those who love me.  I learned not be consumed by pity, things and people.  All things that I have known for a while but along the way, I lost track of them.  This journey made me get back to the me that God always intended for me to be.  It has taught me that my trials are not just mine and to share them with others because I might be that vessel that God uses for some one else.  My testimony is filled with pain, not just the pain of this particular chapter of my life but many, many more.  And if I have to go through the hardship of reliving them all to help someone else, I will.  I know that all of the things I have encountered have been a set up so that I could do God's work.  So that I could help young girls and women that are in similar situations come out victorious.  So I say to you.................  TRUST GOD, BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE, WHO YOU ARE AND REMEMBER..............  ALL THINGS WORK FOR THE GOOD OF THOSE WHO LOVE GOD!!!!