Sharing My Blessings

This is Jill (mom) posting my own message today because I want to share my blessings, literally! First off, YOU are all blessings to me and I am so thankful to each of you for your friendship, your constant support through kind and encouraging words, prayer, and faith. Because I love and appreciate you so much, I want to share an experience I had this past weekend. I share it because I learned from it and know that its lessons are not just for me. We had a change in our Stake Presidency this weekend. Our Stake President, Danny Campbell, lost his wife just a few weeks ago, also to lung cancer. She had different complications than I did, but only lived 3 months after her diagnosis. Elder Snow and Elder Mundy (sp?) came to release Pres. Campbell and call a new presidency. Elder Snow happens to be the brother to a dear friend of my mom's, Carol Hatch, and she spoke to him about giving me a blessing. I received a phone call during the week to have me meet with him on Saturday at 1:00p.m. Even as I walked through the door of the church I felt the spirit so strongly that it was difficult to hold my tears. On the way to the church, my son-in-law, John Scott (Val's husband) asked what I was hoping to get from the blessing. I had already given it quite a bit of thought, and what I wanted was to know the Lord's will for me. How did he want me to be spending my time? Elder Snow asked me the same question in addition to what I have learned through this experience. I told him I have learned that we are instruments in Heavenly Father's hands. The acts of kindness and true compassion and care I have been the recipient of have been rendered by You...my friends and family. I know if Heavenly Father were here on earth, He would do these things, but he counts on us to be His hands. Elder Snow then annointed my head with consecrated oil and explained that the annointing was the most important part of the blessing. It was healing oil and the blessing given afterwards was sort of "icing on the cake." He then gave me my blessing which helped me know that Heavenly Father does know me and what I am going through and I what I need. I learned that I must be faithful and charitable toward others. He encouraged me to keep teaching as a valuable and charitable service to my students. He told me to share my faith and be a light on a hill that could not be looked away from. This is why I wanted to write today. I want all of you to know that I know God lives and loves each one of us in a personal way. Whether you are a believer in Him or not, he loves us and we are His children. I have no doubt about this fact. I was not promised a certain amount of time to live in my blessing, but I was promised I would be healed unless it was the Lord's will that I return to Him having finished my work on this earth. I can live with that. Thank you all for your continued love and support. It means everything to me. I am feeling so much better than anyone should in my position. I am having chemo tomorrow...my platelets were back up. I'll have my scans on Sept. 30th and we'll take things from there. My love to all of you! Jill