Tonight's Benefit

Money raised for a good cause is always a good thing. It's not really our money anyways, so giving it away shouldn't be as hard as some people make it out to be down here. The little girl who spoke at the beginning was named Grace. That right there completely made me lose any stoic behavior I had built up on the ride over this evening. She is currently in remission, having fought two rounds with a form of leukemia. She's not quitting. She's got her gloves on, and she's got God on her side. Sorry, cancer, I don't think you're going to take that little girl down.

There was a video after one of the speeches that was amazing, although I couldn't see half of it through eyes of tears, but what I saw was incredible. I told Kate I'd have to find out a way to have that video. Speaking of Katie, the three boxes of Kleenex tissues that were on our 6-top table somehow all collected right in front of her at the end of the evening. She used nearly every one of them too. Anyways, the video was of children, some in the middle of chemo, some that looked to be in remission, all battling or have battled cancer. Each child looked into the camera and said the same two words: "Thank you." Some extended out the comments to say "Thank you for fighting for me." "Thank you for caring." "Thank you for being there." The video was probably only a couple minutes long, but it felt like ten years. It was wonderfully made, as were each child in that piece. I left with the human emotion of sadness and grief over Gracie going Home last year, but I also left praising the One who created everything. I know that an entire eternity awaits us with Gracie. As hard as it was to sit there and know that some of the children talked about tonight, or some of the children in that video will be seeing Jesus long before we would like, time is all that separates us if we believe in His perfect salvation.