"Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains..." Psalm 36:5-6a

What a great Psalm! I'm sure many of you know this from the song aptly titled "Your Love O Lord," which, in its own right, is a great song. I have a very vivid memory of standing on a beach in the Dominican Republic the summer after my senior year of high school, singing this song. It was the end of an incredible--and honestly life-changing--mission trip with my youth group from Bent Tree, and our team of 11 students and 2 leaders was de-briefing at a hotel in Santo Domingo. Part of that included team worship time on our last night, and that's where we come to me, standing on the beach, facing the ocean, mountains in the distance, a full moon, and not a cloud in the sky, singing this song, and just absolutely KNOWING the words to it and understanding it in such a real way. For many reasons this trip was so significant, and to close it out, it was probably the second greatest night of my life-- being able to look out to my surroundings and get such an incredible visual of these words: "Your love...reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness stretches to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice flows like the ocean's tide." The song goes on to say, "I will lift my voice to worship You, my King. And I will find my strength in the shadow of Your wings."

Having always loved these words and having a great memory/visual to which I can place them, they are such a good reminder in a time like this. On our trip, basically our whole construction plans of pouring a foundation were thwarted by an approaching hurricane that drenched the site and filled the trenches for our foundation with water. So, instead of accomplishing a good amount of manual labor, we ended up trying to get water (and frog eggs...sicknasty) out of the trenches each day, fixing rebar (sp?) and wondering why we were pretty much the most underachieving team Bent Tree had yet sent to the DR. However, since our elaborate construction plans all changed, the missionaries came up with a "plan b" which was to help clean one of the houses on site that the team the year before (that I was a part of) had mostly built, readying it for the first orphans to inhabit. Long-story-short, we got to move in the first people to the whole mission site, which was the fulfillment of the missionary's dream and the culmination of 25 years of work on his part to accomplish that dream.

And so, that whole experience typified what I've learned many times since--that often (and especially in my life), things go so far from the way we have planned them--and that can often seem like we've failed. But, God's plans are so much better than we could ever have imagined; the night we moved those orphans in was probably the greatest night of my life, and we wouldn't have been able to do that had the rain not thwarted our plans to make us the most "underachieving" team Bent Tree had ever sent to the DR. That lesson rings so true today--hey, I never would have picked lymphoma to cap off my senior year of college, and while it, like bailing out frog-infested waters in trenches in the DR, is not always a fun or easy learning process, God's plans are so much better than ours, and if we can just TRUST Him, His promises are true, and the end is better than we can imagine. The night after we moved in the orphans was the one on the beach, and that night, everything was so clear and put into great perspective--that His love truly never ends; that His faithfulness is beyond the heights up in that clear expanse of never-ending blue; that His righteousness is high and bold like those mountains in the distance; that His justice is as deep as that ocean and just keeps on coming like the ocean's tide. And now, I need that reminder--that, out of every situation in our lives, our response should be to lift our hands and our voices to worship Him, our King, as well as to truly find our strength in the shadow and comfort of God alone. I'll be honest--some days I'm better at that than others--yes, even while going through cancer. You'd think that, since sometimes it's just more natural (maybe not easier) to lean on the Lord alone during a trial, I'd be a pro at that right now. And then, you would be wrong.

Nevertheless, His faithfulness (which is never-ending in case you didn't get that the previous two times I mentioned it) continues, and praise the Lord that He loves us in spite of vacillating all the time between trusting Him and trusting ourselves. I like to consider myself a pretty consistent person--that was my best attribute out on that volleyball court--and yet, somehow the things I've learned in volleyball, while quite frequently carrying over into real life, have not ALL translated to my daily life here in the real world outside of the volleyball court. So sadly, even though this process of chemo, etc. is not fun and is not on my list of things I'd like to ever do again--and that would seem like it would make me perfectly consistent in trusting Him each day--that, lamentably, is not the case. But, depending on how you look at it, that could be a fortunate thing since it does have the effect of bringing me back to my knees in humility when I realize that, once again, I've been trying to do it on my own, and when faced with my own need and inability to actually DO it on my own, I am back to trusting in Him.

I just had some thoughts, had to reminisce about that night in the DR, and wanted to check in with the audience at home for a few minutes, but--SHOCK!--it seems I have already written a good amount! Now on to the more concrete details for those of you beaver-types who like the details more than the whimsical ramblings and spontaneity of us otters (if that reference escapes you, you probably should read the Treasure Tree book about personalities--it's a good read--illustrated and all :) ).

So anyway, it is Monday night, and this is our last week before Spring Break and my last quad (1/2 semester here at Wheaton) of college. OH MY GOSH. SCARRRRYYYY. You know, you push through college, at times thinking it will never end, only to throw on the brakes and live in denial of the fact that real life is coming more quickly than you actually really wanted that whole time. You all know the experience--wanting to get to the end and then, when it's within sight, feeling like a moron for having wanted so much to get there and for having wasted a lot of time along the way. That's me. right now. senior. scared. needing a job and not having a clue where I will be in 6 months (except, of course, doing my best to make sure that whatever I'm doing is located anywhere warm). I digress, however. I was mentioning how it is my spring break next week...well, it is TCA's spring break this week, so my mom and Madelyn are flying up tomorrow morning through Thursday morning to hang out in Chi-town with me and accompany me to treatment number 7. Please pray for their safety as they're traveling and that our time would be so sweet together. I love those guys! Also, pray that my dad would enjoy his time home alone--he said tonight that he gets only about three days absolutely to himself each year, so he's kinda looking forward to the next few days of not being around the women in his life. (this in no way offends me; poor guy has to deal with 4 ADD women all the time, so do not begrudge him for looking forward to some personal days). And, for the fourth McGinnis woman (Katie), here's a huge praise--she has a job in Child Life now at the hospital in Colorado Springs, so she is relieved to know what she is doing for a while and to have a place to live--things have been a little stressful for Katie in the Springs lately, so thanks for praying for her safety traveling out there and as she's been trying to figure out life.

After my mom and Madelyn leave, I'll be recovering from treatment 7 as we head into our spring break, so I'll be sure to update sometime before I leave for New York City next Tuesday (I'm going with my first co-counselor from Kanakuk K-West and subsequent bff Melissa Fain!). I'm so blessed to be going somewhere, and it's amazing that it worked out to be going somewhere with Melissa, too! At first we thought I'd have to just park it at home in Fairview for a week while my mom and Mad had school and my dad had work and all my friends are gone on their spring breaks, so really, I've been SO looking forward to this trip as something to brighten up the otherwise monotonous 2-week cycle of chemo treatments. After NYC, I'm heading to Houston for my cousin Elaine's wedding (!!!!), which will be great family time and so much fun to see all my cousins and family again--as I've said, we're a tight bunch. But, all of those details are most likely superfluous...it's getting late and I'm trailing off worse than normally...back to treatment 7. It's on Wednesday (so two days--March 4th) at 3pm. Being halfway done is amazing--what a praise and blessing--but at the same time, it's still a little daunting to know that what I've so far done, I now turn around and do all over again. So, I would love prayer for perseverance--I've known from day 1 that the support has been incredible and such, but I've also been very conscious from day 1 that, come the middle of this journey, it would be so much harder, and I guess I know myself to a good degree because that is the case. It's not unbearably hard, but it is harder right now for me than it was at the start, so perseverance to take one day at a time still, to stay in the Word daily, and to keep my eyes fixed on the goal of this, which is total healing, are all things I would love prayer for. Also, physically, as I'm heading into the much-longed-for trip to NYC, continuing prayers for health and recovery from this treatment (since I'll be flying on day 7, the first day of starting the upward slope of my tolerance for the chemo) would be great--also that I will be safe from germs. :) Last sidenote--and a huge praise!--last week I was supposed to hang out with three different people, all on different days, and at some point, each one called or texted to say they were sick and were gonna have to cancel. While I was a little bummed each time someone flaked, it was actually so cool to see in hindsight because I found out with each of the three of them after the fact that they had fevers and didn't know it when they canceled our hanging out. PTL! If someone has a cold, it's not really been a concern for me because I've had colds during this process and that's fine; it's the fever thing that gets me--if I get 100.5 or more, I have to go to the hospital, and since that's a pretty small margin of a temperature, what a praise that each person canceled on me! I'm finding many reasons to praise Him for things that, otherwise I might scoff at as small, and yet now that I can see are ways the Lord is looking out for me.

Ok, that's all for now. I'll check back in after chemo 7! Oh--last thing--and this will definitely incriminate me as a Texan, of which I am THRILLED to be accused--but Happy Texas Independence Day! Yes, this is a state holiday. Or a "national holiday" if you want to go REALLY Texan and talk about our state as a nation, since it WAS and all. :) I gotta get me back to the south...

Once again, thankyou thankyou thankyou for your love, prayers, and support. God bless, may you be warm, and may you KNOW that His love never ends, His faithfulness is so vast, His justice is so present and deep, and His righteousness is strong and great.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,

Hannah