Kanakuk bound

Hello everyone! Today is a really exciting day for me because I am on my way to camp! This will be my eighth summer at Kanakuk and I am very excited to be able to see all of my friends and old counselors. The best thing about camp is everyone here is so on fire for the LORD and they truly live everyday of their lives out for our LORD and savior Jesus Christ. It is so encouraging and by the time I get home my heart is exactly where it needs to be. I am so excited to see how the LORD is going to use me and my story to reach out to other people. I hope and pray that I will have the opportunity to share my testimony because it is such a wonderful picture of the LORD's unfailing love for his children. I know that my sickness has not been in vain and I'm so excited for this week because I will be able to see some of the many plans the LORD has for me! Please pray for my while I am at camp and that everything I say and do will be for His glory, not mine. I also pray that I will grow spiritually! A couple of days ago we found out that Walgreens had given me the wrong medicine and for the past 3 weeks I have been taking the wrong medicine. It takes about a week and a half for the medicine to get in my system so for the first week I could not notice anything and I felt fine. After the first week I started to feel really weak and it confused me since for the past couple of weeks I had started to feel a little better. While I was at the beach I was extremely exhausted and I thought it was from the heat. I also got sick on the trip and I thought I was just tired from fighting a cold but when we got back home and my mom went to refill my medicine she found out that I had been taking the wrong medicine!! There are two types of thyroid medicine: generic and name brand. Most people can take either and be fine but I cannot take the generic because it does it work at all in my body. After my treatment when they put me back on thyroid medicine we discovered that my body just would not take the generic brand so we switched to name brand. Since I have been taking the wrong medicine for the past 3 weeks it has been like I have not been taking any medicine at all. If I would have gone to camp and still not been aware of the medicine mix up then I would of felt so extremely tired and weak. It would almost like I would be doing my treatment all over again! What a blessing that we figured out the problem! We have the right medicine but it takes a little but to get in my system so this week at camp I will probably be pretty tired. I am going to take it easy this week and not participate in all of the activities just because my strength is not back to normal and I don't want to wear myself out. Please pray for my energy levels and that they will stay consistent this week! This is a big step for momma to let me go because I have not gone anywhere without her this year, not even spend the night out. I was diagnosed about two weeks after I came back last year and my first concern was if I was going to be able to come to camp this summer and I am so thankful and blessed to be visiting my Kanakuk family this week! Everyone at camp has been so wonderful and kept up with me during everything and I can't wait to see everyone! I am supposed to be at camp right now but since I am part of the Walker family it is impossible for us to be early or on time anywhere! :) Please continue to pray for my friend Leslie and right now she is in isolation at St. Jude with an infection. God is in control and His plan is so wonderful so just pray for her and her family to be able to see and trust in His plan during this scary time. I have some big appointments when I come back from camp so please pray for some more good results! Thank you everyone for the love and support! Means the world to me! Have a blessed day!!

Do not fear for He is with you

I hope that everyone has been enjoying this beautiful day! I am still at the beach and although some of the day was rainy it was still a great day! In the morning the weather was perfect so my family and I headed down to the beach to enjoy the day. After a couple of hours of great weather the skies started to darken as a thunder storm was approaching. As I looked out all I could see was giant storm clouds filled with rain and huge waves crashing on the shore. Everyone on the beach went back up to their condos to get far away from the storm that was moving our was super fast. When the weather was nice everyone came out to enjoy the beach but as soon as it got ugly outside everyone went the complete other direction and get as far away from the storm as possible. People tend to run away when life gets hard and this was such a great illistration. I found out that I had cancer in August of 2011 and I am so very blessed to have people in my life that stayed with me during my storm. There are people that will only want to be with you when the weather is nice and there are people that will stick with you no matter what the weather looks like! We all have storms in our lives, some greater than others but no matter what the LORD is always there walking alongside you the whole time. He will NEVER leave you during the hardest parts of your life. "Don't be afraid for I am with you. Don't be discouraged for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." Isaiah 40:41. No matter how many times you stray away from Him, He comes chasing after you with open arms and never leaves your side. There are so many people right now going through hard times and I want to challenge each and everyone of you to be the person who sticks around even when things get difficult. There is someone right now who would love to see your smile and hear your encouraging words. When people check in on me to see how I am doing it makes me feel so much better and it is encouraging to know that someone went out of their way to ask about me. So who are you going to be... the person who stays even when times get tough or the person who is the first one to run away. Be the one who sticks around because you never know how much someone needs it. Please continue to pray for my friend Leslie! She had her surgery and everything went smoothly (praise God!). Pray over her health and pray for a speedy recovery. It is very frustrating to feel tired and weak so pray for patience for her and her family. Also please continue to pray for my energy levels and that soon I will be feeling back to normal and feel like the old me. Thank you everyone for your prayers, support, and kind words. They are much appreciated and truly make my day so much better. Have a blessed day!

Look at the bright side

Hello everyone! How is your day going? I hope it is magnificent! Right now I am at the beach with my family having a blast. This is a much needed vacation/getaway! I love the beach so much and when we go to the beach it is truly one of the best parts of my summer. We arrived yesterday afternoon and when we first got here we could not wait to go to the shore after our long car ride. To our surprise when we got down there the shore and water was covered in seaweed. Despite the seaweed the temperature was delightful (not too hot) and the waves were the perfect size. My dad and sister went boogie boarding while I stayed on shore and supervised because I was a little worn out from the long trip. Yesterday we thought that all of the seaweed would interfere with our beach experience and keep us from doing what we wanted to do like swimming but it did not! My family went out in the ocean and as they fought their way through the seaweed they noticed that people were picking up crabs and shrimp. The crabs and shrimp had gotten caught in the seaweed and everyone was catching them for fun! Sometimes we need to stop for a minute and look at situations with a different perspective. What we think is a setback is often an opportunity to learn something new about God's world and His creation. Yes the seaweed was pretty gross but it was so cool to be able to see all of these little creatures that My God created. This past year has been extremely tough and hard for me but I honestly would not take back anything that happened. My situation is definitely not fun at times but because I am able to look at it with a different perspective I am able to have a good attitude. Whatever is going on in your life right now I challenge you to stop for a minute and try to see the light at the end of the tunnel. One of my favorite quotes by Dolly Parton is "storms make trees take deeper roots". It is so hard sometimes to look at the bright side and try to see the good our situations (I am the first to admit that I fail and sometimes get so caught up in the negativity). When we get caught up in all the negativity we tend to forget all of our blessings from God. These blessings are never-ending but we need to learn to always be able to see them no matter our circumstances. I would like to ask everyone to pray for my sweet friend Leslie as she has gallbladder surgery on Tuesday. Leslie is a patient at St. Jude and she has ALL (a form of leukemia). She is such a wonderful girl but she has had a very hard journey to say the least. Please pray that the doctors will be able to remove her gallbladder without any complications and that Leslie will have a speedy recovery. Pray over her family so that the LORD will grant them comfort during this time. Also please continue to pray for the Colletti family as they deal with facing their daily challenges without their son Andre (one of my friends from St. Jude) who passed away recently. I love each and everyone of you who has kept up with me and given me their prayers through my journey as a cancer patient. I cannot say thank you enough and there are no words to express how truly grateful I am. Have a blessed day!

John 3:30

Hello everyone! I hope y'all are having a spectacular day! I know I am! I have had a wonderful fun-filled week with my family and friends at the lake. Obviously I was not able to do anything crazy like tubing or skiing but I enjoyed myself and had a blast with the people that I love! I was able to swim which was really relaxing and fun. I love being at the lake because there in no real schedule everyone just does what they want when they want to. This past year everything has been go go go. My schedule has been packed St Jude appointments, school, and recovering so it was so wonderful to do nothing for once! Being at the lake is always so relaxing but it is also such a wonderful reminder of God's creation. I know that I take it for granted and forget to look around and remember my Creator. This world is so beautiful because He created it and it is filled with all of His creation but at the same time this world is so broken and ugly. This is a sinfully beautiful world and it is so easy to get lost in it and caught up in my sin. This world is filled with people hate Him and raise cries against Him, temptation, and sin. But at the same time this world is SO beautiful! It is filled with people that make themselves nothing so that Christ can become greater and commit themselves to serving others and glorifying the LORD. His marvelous creation fills the earth for me made me and everything else on the earth. His power is overwhelming and it is so easy to get caught up in this sinful world and forget my Creator. I want to be a beautiful part of this world. Someone that hates sin and temptation especially my sin. I want to be someone that lives everyday for Christ and through my actions people will be able to see Christ's love. We have a choice to be the beautiful or broken part of this world. What are you going to chose? "He must become greater; I must become less." John 3:30.