I'm still here and I am still thriving! It's been 2 years since I have written in this journal. Until recently, I was ashamed of my cancer and the attention it brought me specifically for my family. I didn't want every conversation that myself and my family had to have with friends and family be about me and cancer. I have never been someone that likes the spotlight. I grew up extremely shy and have worked really hard over the years to be confident enough to be able to talk to people and hold conversations. I am writing because I still feel like this is a platform that God wants me to use to help people. I can't hide from the fact that I had cancer. I shouldn't be ashamed of it. Has it changed me? Yes! Yes it has! But I fully believe that God has been working in every aspect of that change. 

Most days are filled with work and family and life is busy and a constant adventure! I decided that I need to come back to this journal because I feel so many times people that go through something like what I did post about what I call the "in the moment" journey and then as treatments end and you get further and further away from the diagnosis it slows to a stop. I have often felt like that I in some way used this platform during the hard moments and put it to the side during the better moments. But what I realized was that God didn't just want me to share the hard, ugly times. He also wanted me to show the positive and ever changing present and future that I have. I started a Bible study at church called the Seven Realities for Experiencing God. This has really helped open my eyes to how God is still using me through my experiences and he doesn't want me to just hide and be ashamed of the obstacles that I have faced. I feel that He wants me to be transparent and show a complete journey not just a short segment of time. 

So I commit to being more attentive to this journal and sharing what it is like living after Cancer and what God has revealed to me along the way. I hope that you can find something useful within my writings and that God uses me to help someone who needs encouragement and support.

Talk to you soon!