This January, while I was pregnant with my third little girl, and taking care of our two other sweet Princesses who were 4 &2, we started noticing some bruising on my two year old, Alayna Hope aka Laney Bug. And it was bruising in weird places. We had gone to Disney, and she bumped into a wall, and immediately, within like two minutes, she had a huge bruise on her forehead. I honestly didn't think much about it and thought, "Oh she's probably just a little anemic"...but when I finally got in to take her to the doctor we found out within 10 minutes that Our sweet beautiful innocent little girl had leukemia. It's something that we would never expect to happen to our family, but we honestly believe we were chosen for cancer. When my husband got to the doctors office we stood in the parking lot and cried for a while. I looked at him and I said, "Babe what are we going to do?" He looked back at me and said, "Well we only really have two choices. We can sit here on this pavement and keep crying or we can get up and help people..."
And that's exactly what we chose to do. We try to find joy in even the worst of situations. Maybe it's a dance party. Maybe it's a good cup of coffee or a cute pair of comfy legging, maybe it's just a laugh in the middle of our hot mess...no matter how big or small, we choose joy.
In the last nine months we've spent over 100 days in the hospital. We've been to clinic more times then we have not. Chemo, fevers, medicine, infection… They've all become a part of who we are, and a part our story. Praise the Lord, Alayna is in remission, but treatment for leukemia has to continue on for 2 1/2 years. I always like to say I would have never chosen cancer for us or for anyone, but I also wouldn't change it for the world. It's made us stronger and more thankful. Perspective sometimes slaps you in the face. And on those days when I want to complain and think that my life is hard, the Lord reminds me that this is only my journey and not anyone else's, and that there's so many other people that are going through so many worse things than we are. They always say that the Lord won't give you anything you can't handle, but I don't think that's true. I think the Lord chooses to gives you what you can't handle so that your only real option is to depend on Him. Our journey is our journey, and we're learning from it even on the hardest of days, but I think the real reason that we have joy in the middle of this crazy storm is that we have a Hope that is far greater than cancer, death, or this world....no matter what happens we know Laney will be OK and that the Lord will show up, and show off in the situation, and for that reason we just choose joy......
