Cure Search 2015

Cure search 2015 was a success! Our team raised more than their goal! It was awesome to see 500 plus people walking in the rain to support their family and friends! It was definitely a rain event! Rain or shine we were just as determined as everyone else was, to support our #cancerhero, Natalia Sofia!! I was truly touched to see entire families come together to represent a fallen hero by volunteering at the event! One in particular struck me as soon as we walked in at the registration counter. With a beautiful smile, radiating the Love of JESUS on her face, Melissa Mugno's sister, Jennifer was volunteering. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and could barely get my words out! It wasn't even a year since she lost her sister to osteosarcoma........after many years of battling this horrible and wicked disease, Melissa is now in the presence of JESUS, cancer-free. Natalia's school surprised our family with a yellow ribbon fund raiser to support our Cure Search walk, some students in her class went out and raised funds for cure search! Thank you ALL for your kind online donations to support childhood cancer research!! Some of the students from the first year class of Hillsborough Community College's Sonography program came out to support Natalia! Surrounded by friends and family, we walked while the rain mixed in with our tears. Charlie Belcher was the host of the ceremony, and as he called all the cancer survivors to go onstage to receive a medal, I am painfully reminded that some of the parents have lost their child through the battle. I am truly forever grateful just to have Sofia with us.......it is truly a gift. Claudia, Edgar's mom was there, and she received a white rose from Natalia Sofia, in honor of her son, Edgar. It is unfortunate that cancer has brought some of us mommies together, but I am so humbled to be in the lives of the women that I have met through this journey. God had bonded us together through surreal circumstances, to get the very BEST out of us....for HIS GLORY. There is a GOD-GIVEN purpose and a GOD-GIVEN plan in our circumstance, one that we simply can't afford to miss. Grumbling and complaining about our circumstance will keep us from fulfilling HIS call on our lives.........embrace your circumstance.....breathe in your circumstance....be JOYFUL in ALL circumstances. Even when it is your child that has the unfathomable cancer.........Because on the other side of your circumstance, there's a mommy without her baby, aching to touch her child o.n.e.l.a.s.t.t.i.m.e. Proverbs 17:22 A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in ALL circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Ephesians 5:20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Colossians 3:16-17 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.