Dear Reader:

I wonder if Tommy and Kaitlyn traveled all the way to Asheville over the Labor Day holidays to see Mother Nature display these Clemson colors in such a beautiful way…including a new moon…symbolic of fresh new things to come. (*I think not…but it sure makes a great God Wink 🙂 

It hit me recently that my blog post started out with God Winks everywhere…the history and symbolism behind the term…the emotional impact God Winks play in our lives…but  lately I really haven’t mentioned the term  much…one I hope to rectify today.

The “question” in today’s blog isn’t about sports colors coinciding with Mother Nature…as beautiful as that is…but about another question that I find quite compelling. A question that demanded I stop and consider the answer to… in my own life….(Thank you Jody Green for sharing this quote on Facebook.) It immediately drew me to it like a magnet. The question is:

Mandy and I  shared a reflection moment over the weekend that we passed on to John… It has been almost ten years to the day since we first met Mollie. Walsh had asked us to join them for lunch at the Atlantic Bread Company in North Charleston. (regrettably no longer there.) We both fell in love with her and gave Walsh two big thumbs up…before going to my radiologist appointment across the street at Trident.

By this time I already had at least two surgeries, two rounds of chemo and was on my second round of radiation. It wasn’t going well…meaning it didn’t seem to have any positive impact on my particular type of breast cancer.

Somewhere in the middle of the meeting…my doctor said “ten years” …I remember Mandy and I looking at each other a little confused, before she reiterated that the best scenario in her professional opinion was the life expectancy associated with this particular cancer was probably around..ten years

It was only later in the car that I looked at Mandy and asked...”Did you ask her what her opinion of my life expectancy was?” I thought I had missed something in the conversation…Mandy looked shocked and said “No…that came out of nowhere.”

Looking back on it…I think  the doctor (really liked her)  probably felt like the question was just lingering in the air since I had already had so many different treatments (even at that early date.) It was like the “elephant in the room” and it needed addressing. Even though I didn’t ask…she was right.

On the way home I wondered out loud if she meant ten from that appointment or ten from when I started treatments two years earlier…that would mean eight years…best case. I told Mandy that ten years at that point was an unexpected lifetime extension for me…and I was as happy as a clam. Mandy then figured up how old she would be in ten years…and I did the same. We both screamed in mock horror and started laughing at the numbers.

It is exactly where we both are right now in the midst of our September birthdays this year. A “God Wink!”

And since it has actually been a dozen years since my original diagnosis I have been thinking… if I can keep this up awhile longer… maybe I can enter some kind of a  (outliving a cancer prediction) Hall of Fame. 🙂

Isn’t life wonderfully unpredictable or as Gilda Radner so aptly described it…”Deliciously ambiguous!” That is what makes it so exciting and never dull!

Knowing God is in charge and I won’t die one second before or after I am intended to…is such a comforting thought. Man lives by natural laws of order on earth while God has more divine plans for us.

And upon reflection… my life has changed so incredibly much for the better because of what I continue to go through…that I know everything I have asked for…has been given to me…including the most important… TIME…time to write blogs, time to play with grandchildren, time to watch my children become the adults/people they are destined to be…time for friends, time for love, time for getting to know and understand my Creator better and His unique plans for me.

I love the following thoughts about the same title question. (“Thrive Global”/Barry Nicolaou)

“Embrace the idea of your divine brilliance. There’s something you’re here to do. There’s a world or person you’re destined to impact in some way. If you’re for your journey, every single happenstance is a guidepost on your way to who you are meant to be.

Wisdom is the soul’s recognition of its purpose and journey. EVERY happenstance is trying to teach you something to get you to where and WHO you want and need to be. No accidents if you’re living with God’s intention.”  (*Maybe just God Winks! 🙂

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So until tomorrow…”There’s no stopping you from habitually embracing the true you. There’s only ever been you. Whether you perceive life to unfold for or against you is again, your choice.” (Barry Nicolaou)

Pictures from over the weekend….how I choose to use my time…family birthdays, playing, watching butterflies dance in my garden and plants abound in beauty.

John went to Auburn so we watched the Auburn- Oregon game…if you watched it or saw the score you can surmise it was a complete nail biter down to the last second of the game…Auburn pulled it out but it didn’t come easy. Jake tried hard to keep pulling for his tigers but sleep won out. We were totally exhausted ….happy…but exhausted after the game.

*And speaking of Mollie…From Walsh’s new girlfriend, ten years ago, to the mother of three and a hard-working PTA volunteer…*Mollie said she never would have pictured this…but she loves it.

Let’s all pray for the people of the Bahamas…heart-breaking watching the destruction there….Having lived most of my life in the lowcountry now…I know the worst part of the hurricane is the pre-hurricane craziness…all the “maybe” predictions…Mother Nature’s way of letting us know we can spend “katrillions” on weather technology gadgets and no one really knows until the storm hits.

Hopefully for us since we are on the weaker side of the storm when it skirts the SC coast…we won’t sustain the damaging winds and rains of a direct hit…more a smaller tropical storm scenario. We will just have to wait it out and see if it behaves and follows the predictor’s track. 🙂