Melanoma Prayer Center Turns Three!

This IS the day that the LORD has made! I WILL rejoice and be glad in it!

It is also a day I never thought, three years ago, that I'd see. Oh, I thought I'd be here. I just never expected Melanoma Prayer Center on Facebook to still be around. I never thought people would find it and it keep growing and evolving.

I never thought that I would grow and evolve so much. Maybe that's it. I'm the one who has grown and evolved. Every year at this time, I have blogged about MPC's birthday and you can find those here: http://letsgivethanks.blogspot.com/2012/03/year-in-life-of-melanoma-prayer-center.html
and here: http://letsgivethanks.blogspot.com/2013/03/melanoma-prayer-center-turns-two.html

What I wrote in those are still true. This year I find myself pondering how much I really freaking hate melanoma and how much I wish there was absolutely no need for MPC and other sites dedicated to melanoma and other cancers. I hate the carnage and the death. The pain and the agony. The heartbreak and the never-knowing. I hate that far too many people are not listening to us and are courting their own date with the Beast. Hate to say it folks, but he's a keeper. Once you get him in your life, you just cannot get rid of him. Even if he seems to stop hanging around, he leaves little mementos so you never forget that he can pop back by at any time.

As much as I have thoroughly grown to hate and despise this disease...and that's an unmeasurable amount of hate...I have also grown that much, and more, in love and admiration for my melahomies.

If you do not walk melanoma road with us, you won't understand. You can't. What I have witnessed in these past three years is so far beyond astounding, heartwarming, uplifting, life-changing, God-transforming, I cannot begin to describe it.

NO language on earth has the right words. And that's OK. God can take what words I can come up with and convey a small portion of what I would love to say if I could.

And I, me, I get to be part of witnessing Christ in action time and time again. I get to see God at work in this world and in the lives of those who fight melanoma, those who love those who fight, and those who say "good bye" to the fight and to the fighter. Testimonies to love in action. The love of parent-child, spouses, siblings, other familial relationships, friends. People rising to the occasion...SOARING above the occasion...leaving the occasion behind in the dirt. And these are people who do things with tears in their eyes, hurt in their hearts, but damned...they are not about to let melanoma hold them down or back. They choose LIFE! They opt for LOVE and for GOOD every time. Those who are people of faith wear their FAITH on their sleeves and share it with all who will listen. They are all ages, all stages, both genders, a rainbow of skin tones and they all share a common determination to bring melanoma DOWN!

Hear me and hear me loud and good. Melanoma is coming down.

There is no other option.

We're gonna fight so you don't have to.

We're gonna kill the beast so that it doesn't kill more of us and it doesn't kill you.

We're gonna say the prayers and hold onto faith because that's who we are.

We've seen what God does through prayers and through us. We've SEEN it.

We LIVE it.

We TESTIFY to it over and over and over again.

God stands with us. He works on our behalf. He's opening doors we stand in awe of opening.

Time and time again.

And we, me, the melanoma community. We get to be a part of it.

A part not of our choosing to be sure.

But it's where we are. This is our life but it's not all of who we are. Not by a long shot.

We're your husbands and wives, your sons and daughters, your mamas and daddies, your brothers and sisters, your nieces and nephews, your grandsons and granddaughters, your neighbors and friends.

We work, go to school, make bracelets and erect billboards, we get tattoos and write songs, we blog, speak, skydive, raise families, love passionately, and live fully. We walk the walks and raise money for research, we raise awareness and we educate. We fight the fights that demand to be fought and we pick our battles with the future in mind. And the present. And we don't forget the past.

We are you and we don't want YOU becoming one of us.

So, as MPC turns three, here's to three more. I'll be here as long as I have breath and as long as I have melahomies. That's just the way it is.

charis!