awesome surprise

So Friday night I get a text from this girl:

who says that she's coming to whisk me away for the day on Saturday and to be ready to go by 7:45 AM....... and dress appropriately for eating out.  

I say I can't go, the boys have the Read, Right & Run Marathon that morning.  

She says Brian is taking them. 

 I'm pretty stern to Brian about the fact that I really wanted to go see the boys run the last mile of their marathon.  

He tells me that I pretty much don't have a choice and reluctantly lets me know that there are several people involved and it's really not something I want to miss 

(and that he's jealous of the place we're eating and that that's all he's going to say about it).

Hmmm.......Okay.  My mind churned most of the night - I didn't sleep well.  I couldn't figure out why I had to be dressed to go out to eat at 7:45 in the morning.  So early!

But, sure enough, around 7:45, this group of wonderful women surprised me at our front door...

in the "big white bus" as we affectionately called it the rest of the day.

Super glad to see them, but still wondering what was going on.

We did a little repair job on Mom's glasses after a minor mishap with the seat in the big white bus 

(note for the future:  getting instructions from the rental place on how to work the seats is always a good idea - especially if it's pouring down rain when trying to fix said seats so that persons can actually sit in them),

and then we rode around much of West County.....

with Amber at the wheel.....

and much more whispering than I was comfortable with :).....

until we arrived here in South County 

(I think.  Maybe Southwest?  Too much turning around.  Totally confused by this point)

So, as you can see for yourself in this picture, my great deductive reasoning skills clued me in to the fact that we had arrived at a huge event at a church....

for lots and lots of mostly women....

who were willing to stand outside in the rain to wait for the event to start.  Hmmmm.....

About an hour later we were enjoying this scene....

 Laura Story.

Wonderful, sweet girl.

Loved worshiping with her.

You may remember, from many months ago, me talking about her song, "Blessings".

It was very much a part of our cancer journey, and I was so excited to hear her sing it live!

And then this cute girl....

 Britt Nicole.

Again so sweet and such fun songs.

Love that she is a great role model for all the little girls out there.

And then this lovely lady....

Mandisa.

I don't know if I ever wrote about this last year, because of the timing, but Amber and I went to see her at Hoffman Estates last May.  She is so entertaining, has a beautiful voice, is a beautiful girl inside and out, and shares her heart so freely about the struggles that she has endured.  I left that concert a fan, but had no idea that just a week or so later we would be living our biggest struggle yet, and would be remembering that night as God's way of preparing me for what was ahead with her songs of inspiration and her stories of God's healing and deliverance to also give me hope in my situation.  We had wavered about going to the concert that night.  We knew it was a long drive home that night, and we thought we would just see how our time went.  Well, we had plenty of time, of course, went to the concert and loved every minute of it!  I am in constant amazement at how God orchestrates his plan for us.  How things come together at just the right time and just the right place.  I'm incredibly thankful that every once in a while he allows us to see how a tiny part of that plan is coming together - like this concert right before my diagnosis.  

No coincidence.  

Entirely His plan.

Her song "Stronger" has been my ringtone since being diagnosed.  It has been a constant presence in our journey.  So when she sang it at the very end of the concert I pretty much bawled like a baby.  It wasn't pretty.  And then I pretty much made everyone else cry too - no sense having red puffy eyes all alone, right?  I know they were all thanking me for that.  Anytime, girls, anytime.

Here we are at intermission.  I knew the concert had been sold out for weeks - actually I think it sold out within an hour.  But I just thought that Amber had heard about it when she was here one time and had been able to get tickets before they sold out.  Nope.  Mandisa's tour manager contacted her a few weeks ago saying that they wanted to give us tickets so that we could go to the concert!  Amber had contacted them a while back, telling them our story and the role Mandisa and her music had played in it, and they were so kind and generous to secure tickets for us!  Seriously they are the nicest people!  So Amber told me all of this at intermission.  I was really trying hard to process everything, but it all seemed kind of like a blur....all the surprises - my mind couldn't handle it.

THEN!!!!  The concert is over and all the girls are just sitting around.  Okay, I guess they just want to wait out the crowd.  They finally start moving toward a door, but it's on the opposite side of where we came in, but they don't seem to listen to me.  Then Vicki and Amber are almost at a run to get to the other door.  I'm so confused.  First they didn't want to leave.  Now they can't wait to get to the door, leaving us in the dust.  Then Amber pulls something out of the ticket envelope and shows it to the girl at the door.  And something magical happens......she lets us backstage!!!!

We got to meet Mandisa!!

How beautiful is she?? 

Mandisa's tour manager had arranged for us to come to a Meet and Greet so that I could personally tell Mandisa our story and thank her for sharing hers.

Although, I don't feel like I quite had it together to really say all the words that I really wanted her to hear from me.  Don't you hate when you know you have one and only one chance to do something and you really want to do it right and make it count, and that in itself makes you so nervous that you can't do it the way you want?  Is it just me?  Argh!!

I loved every minute of it, though - even when I stumbled all over my words :)

I hope she understood how grateful I was to her and what her music has meant to me this past year.

After we chatted a few minutes, she asked if I had one of her Stonger bracelets.  I said no (thinking in that split second, "why didn't I get the bracelet when Nyla and Vicki and Amber tried to get me to get one but I got a t-shirt instead?").

She said I had to have one and pulled one right off of her wrist.  Then she wrote a scripture on it (1Peter 5:10) and gave it to me.  Really?  Such a sweet sweet girl!

 And I was so excited that we got to meet Laura Story, also!!

She is expecting her first child, so she and Erin were talking baby stuff here.

I have no idea why I'm pulling on the bottom of my shirt or why I have that goofy look, but I was getting to tell her about how my friend, Lori, was friends with one of her friends, and Lori had actually gotten a CD signed by her for me last year after I had talked about how much I liked "Blessings" and how much I was relating to it.

She was so sweet to share on stage some of the struggles that she and her husband have been facing.  He was diagnosed with a brain tumor a few years ago, if I remember correctly.  "Blessings" came out of that journey.  Loved talking to her about that.   Such a fun, sweet, tender-hearted girl - wish her all the best with the rest of her pregnancy and her venture into parenthood!

  I hate that we didn't get a picture, but we also got to meet the tour manager that set this all up for us - great guy!  So glad we were able to meet him and thank him in person.

We did actually finally leave - although I could have stayed and talked for hours!

I loved listening to how God had worked in their lives.

So thankful again for their willingness to share their stories, their heartaches, and their blessings.

And the big white bus took us here:

The Melting Pot.

I love the Melting Pot.

Actually I love the cheese and the chocolate.

I had so much fun - hope the other girls did too.

I was stuffed and exhausted that night.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful memories!

Thank you for whisking me away ladies and making the day so special - love you!!