This past weekend was the first illness camp since the tornado hit campus on April 27th; it was a family camp for children with cancer.
As I look around at the damage that occurred from the storm in such a short amount of time and how long it is taking to put it back to normal, I realized…there are storms that hit the everyday lives of so many people. Some effects are not as visible to the outside world as the damage from the tornado. Some live within the bodies of God’s most precious creation, a child. The destruction from these storms is not as easy to bounce back from. It takes more than a team of volunteers and construction workers to “fix” it.
Saturday, as I was walking around campus I stopped to chat with a dad of a 10 year old that has been battling cancer since he was 5. His cancer is manageable but not curable. This dad shared with me that many of the parents here had told him that when they get to a certain point in their child’s treatment, say September, they will have beaten cancer or if they make it 6 more months they will have beaten cancer. This dad sadly said, “September… will never come for us.” With no known cure, the only hope is to add years to his young son’s life with continuous treatment. I asked him the question I ask so many families. “What does it mean to you and your family to be able to have a place such as Children’s Harbor to come to?” His exact words were, “we love it and look forward to it every year. This is an amazing place, and I feel God in every corner.”
So many times people express to me what a spiritual experience it is to be here on campus at Children’s Harbor.
Even the hospice nurses told me this when they would come to sit with my dad while he lived here on campus with me in his last days of life.
We all have storms in our lives. Some just seem to blow harder than others.
When we face the storms of life, I cannot think of anyone else I would rather have in my corner.
Thank you God for your many blessings as you continue to allow us to serve so many.
wonderful!
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