Um....wow?

So ,I have been doing a lot of soul searching...if you call it that....not even sure, but a few weeks ago I came across some YouTube videos that changed my life a little. I am going to try to put the last video I watching in this blog, but that is hard when you have no clue how to do it:)

Anyway, these video's were pictures taken throughout one little 5 year old's battle for his life. He and his family live in Iowa, and he has a twin brother named Caden. Coleman was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the young age of 3, and he and his family started a long journey of chemo, radiation, and many trips to the hospital, but here is the amazing thing about it....they did it as a family. Mom, Dad, brother and patient. Each one of them right next to Coleman every step of the way. It was the last video that touched me most, that got through my thick skull that..."Danielle you are needed in the Kingdom, and I want you to work with these families." Families that are going through what seems like "hell on earth" watching their kids going through something no one should ever go through child or adult. A terminal illness.
I have been keeping up with Coleman and his journey, I have started praying for him and his family, just like I have been praying for my own family members battling some pretty serious health issues.

So here is the thing. I LOVE kids, but I am not sure I want any. I want to be there when it seems like their world is crashing right in front of them, but most of all I want to represent Christ in away I never thought I would be capable of doing. This is going to require much more then an education....its going to require holding back tears, holding hands of a child that needs nothing more then prayer, and being with a family who is losing one of the most important people in their life. This is what I want to do...and it all came to me watching a family go through something as terriable as this.

So, how do I go about something like this. Well I have begun the process of working with the St Louis Children's Hospital Chaplaincy program. I have also started looking into St Jude's Hospital in Memphis Tennesee. You start out as a volenteer, then to an intern, and then to a full pleagded chaplain. YES...this suprizes me...I wanted to work in a church doing youth and children stuff, but God placed termanially ill children, their smiles, their laughs, and their tears on my heart. There is something about a sick person that makes you see things in a whole new way. I can promise you....these familes will touch me MUCH more then I will ever touch them.

As for little Coleman....he lost his battle on the 6th of Januray, his twin brother lost his BEST friend, and his parents lost a son. Something that should never happen, but in todays fallen world it does. To know that this has been placed on my heart makes me what to go now...but I will wait...I will go through the processes, and I will let God take me where I need to go.

I ask all of you who read this to pray for the Larson's as they begin a new life, and I ask that you pray for me, as I start this process and that I continue to grow in this desire to go out into the Kingdom....the Kingdom that needs me.


As for the video I am going to try, but I am going to warn you its going to make you cry. Turn up your sound....if you have kids.....old or young.....take them hold them....or call them....because you never know, and that is the hardest part of life....you never know, but we have HOPE.....

Okay....you are going to have to go directly to the YouTube site. So go to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDx26D_JuA&feature=channel and that will take you to the video. This way you can see more videos of the whole journey this family took together.