miracles.

"It's easy when we suffer loss to become the center of our life. We had them and now they're gone. And so there is, like, this giant hole where they once were, and it becomes all we think about. And what happens in the process is, our whole life becomes what we don't have, and we lose out on what we do have. Your heart, my heart...it will recover. It will never, our hearts will never be the same again, but we will recover." ---Rob Bell (Matthew | 012)

I was just thinking how much I miss my dad. But for one of the first times, it was a different kind-of missing him. It's like, my life is so great. I've surrendered my life to God and he's restored me!! I feel so full of joy, and have a loss of worry...and I just want to share that with him. I want my dad to know how incredibly great I'm doing, and what God is doing in my life. And I want to share with him, how great God is. But he's not here, and he hasn't been for four years. Then I started to get sad.

Then I thought more...I truly and utterly believe God's purpose for my dad's cancer and for his death was so that I would love and get to know him. My dad and I didn't get along before he got cancer, in fact, I hated him. Once he got sick, I let it go (the process of forgiveness was long and I actually didn't fully forgive him til after he passed but I was able to look past all the wounds and get to know him). I think that if he hadn't got cancer, I would of moved away and never spoke to him again. But his cancer made me forgive him, his cancer taught me to love him through all the pain.

Now I realize that God's purpose for my dad's cancer wasn't just so I could get to know my dad, but it was so I could get to know my Father, God.

Think about it. I left the church at 16 because I was bitter, angry, I hated my dad, I was treated like crap by him, and inevitably that rolled over to God...meaning, I stopped trusting God, I was angry at him for my wounds. When I was 18, we found out he had cancer right before I left for art school in Minneapolis, 7 months later I came back to be with my family. I was still bitter, angry, and all of the above but then I saw my dad's heart. I saw how the cancer softened his heart, how it changed him and how he was truly sorry for the pain he caused me. God restored his heart. Dad died when I was 20, at which I was at UNL going down a scary path, with no God in sight. One day about 8 months after he died, I woke up and decided to end that path. I moved to Omaha and applied for hair school. Move forward a year later and we meet Megan Smith. I was at a point in my life where I was hungry for more, but didn't know what it was....Megan sat in my chair wanting her hair colored and I noticed a bible verse tattooed on her. I asked her about it, she invited me to church, then a few months later, I was re-dedicated to Christ and baptized.

Do you think if my dad hadn't got cancer I would be where I'm at now?

I honestly don't know where I'd be but I'm very aware God placed this circumstance and that situation in my life so I would be where I'm at now- fully surrendered to Him, running towards the light, and wanting to tell the whole world of how great God is. God restored my heart. And without cancer, without the loss of my earthly dad, I'm afraid my heart would of remained bitter, angry, and full of hatred towards both of my dads. But the Lord, oh the Lord does miracles.