Swim for your life
Swim for the music that saves you
When you're not so sure you'll survive
You gotta swim
And swim when it hurts
The whole world is watching
You haven't come this far
To fall off the Earth
The currents will pull you
Away from your love
Just keep your head above
I found a tidal wave
Begging to tear down the dawn
Memories like bullets
They fired at me from a gun
Cracking the armour, yeah
I swim for brighter days
Despite the absence of sun
Choking on salt water
I'm not giving in
I swim
You gotta swim
Through nights that won't end
Swim for your family, your lovers
Your sisters and brothers and friends
Yeah you gotta swim
For wars without cause
Swim for these lost politicians
Who don't see their greed is a flaw
The currents will pull us
Away from our love
Just keep your head above
I found a tidal wave
Begging to tear down the dawn
Memories like bullets
They fired at me from a gun
Cracking the armour, yeah
I swim for brighter days
Despite the absence of sun
Choking on salt water
I'm not giving in
I'm not giving in
I swim
You gotta swim
Swim in the dark
There's no shame in driftin'
Feel the tide shifting
And wait for the spark
Yeah you gotta swim
Don't let yourself sink
Just find the horizon
I promise you it's not as far as you think
The currents will drag us away from our love
Just keep your head above
Just keep your head above
Swim
Just keep your head above
Swim
Just keep your head above
Swim
When asked in an interview what he has learned from his experience with Leukemia, he replies: "If I could say anything, if I've learned anything from it - you never know what's coming for you. I don't say that to instill any sort of paranoia, but the point being, you don't know that you might not wake up tomorrow, and it's you or your friend, or some other possible road block that you might not know happen. You try and make sure day to day that you're living, not so that you are prepared for something like that, but you're living in a way that would make you okay with it. That could mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. For me, it's as simple as trying to live a life as a kind person, and doing things that I'm proud of, and looking after the people that I love in my life, and being as connected to the things and people that hold you in and are special to me." - Love that.
A shirt I hotfixed with a rhinestone "5"
A set of jammies with a funny thing she said stenciled on them
and little treat bags for her and Sam
Here she is in her "5" shirt with flowers from her daddy for her flower party.
I just love this picture of her getting her toenails painted! I miss her and wish I could have been there to celebrate her birthday with her in person!
I promise I will stop dedicating posts to Nie so you do not tire of them. But I was going to email Stephanie a long email in response to this post and decided I wanted to say it here since it describes a big part of my life right now. I know it is long and I hope it is not too depressing. It is real, and hard, but I am so blessed too.
Stephanie, You are as beautiful as anyone can be. You are the most remarkable person and so lovely inside and out. Seriously, the inner beauty that you contain could not compare to model beauty - they are tiny smurfs in comparison to your giant beauty.
I relate to this particular struggle, because I have a chronic illness (Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction) that has taken my looks and thrown them against the pavement with a splat. I have huge cystic acne that takes forever to heal, I have gained 100 pounds, I am pale and my eyes are sunken in with dark circles under them that never go away. I could go on, and yes, I know it could be much worse, and this may seem very petty and dumb in comparison, but it has been so hard to lose the sense of identity I had tied to my looks.
I feel so much worse when I exercise that I can't handle it, even though I used to love it - so I can't seem to make a dent in the weight, even on a grain-free, hardly any natural sweetener diet. So many systems in my body have gone haywire, including my thyroid and adrenal glands and I know they play a part in that.
I have also lost some of the things I could do that I tied my identity to, at least for now. I haven't accomplished the things I have wanted to in life. I guess the Lord has a much different plan for me. It is difficult when many days, all I can do is go from the bed, getting up to go to the bathroom no less than 1,000 times, to the computer so I can sit up for a while and be awake, to the couch and then back to bed with my greasy hair slathered to my head, in my pajamas and hope that no one looks too closely when I pick Jake up from school because I look like a scary mcfright show. But I try to remember who I am on the inside. I know I put too much stock in what others think of me and my weight gain (when I do actually use the energy it takes to shower and go out in the world). It makes me hide from the world. But not you. You are courageous in the face of losing the easy movement in your skin, the worldly beauty that you knew before. You are courageous, even though you look different than you did, and different to the world. You are beautiful beyond compare.
Love emanates from you. God's love. Pure love. Thank you for sharing your beautiful self with all of us. You inspire me daily to forget the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do. Thank you, above all, for reminding me of Christ's love.
