We're Steppin' Out!

I was a bad girl. A group of life-long friends came to my house for the weekend. Debbie and David came from Greenville, SC for Debbie's birthday. Val and Scott came from Wilimington to help celebrate. Saturday was one crazy, fun-filled day. Lunch during the game; tenderloin, chicken salad, pasta salad, dip, pretzels, nuts, birthday cake, beer for the guys, cosmos for the girls. A trip to Childress Winery for a wine tasting where we were joined by my older brother and his wife. A big table amoung the fermentation vats in the winery where we ate cheese and olives and drank Sangiovese and Chardonnay and Cabernet Savignoun. We told tall tales and
laughed until our cheeks hurt. Then we went back to my house, changed into spiffy clothes and went out to a wonderful, intimate restaurant for dinner. (we took a cab, by the way.) More
wonderful food, more wonderful wine, more funny stories and more birthday cake. We laughed all the way home in the cab and some more while sitting around the fire in our "pjs". I went to bed with my stomach hurting not from the overindulgence of food or drink, but from pure gut-laughing.

And you know what??? I could do it all, bad girl that I was. I could drink a small cosmo, eat ballgame food fare, taste lots of wine and still have a glass with my cheese and olives, eat rich food for dinner, stay up past 9:00 p.m., wake up the next day and make breakfast for everyone and then not even come close to collapsing when everyone left. My husband and I spent Sunday afternoon walking around an RV show pretending we wanted to buy a big one.

Incredible. I haven't had a weekend like that, (where I had so much fun and did so much stuff that I felt compelled to ask for forgiveness) in over a year. And the group we had assembled for this weekend, coming right on the heels of my great news about my CAT scan, was perfectly aware of the fact that even though we were celebrating Deb's birthday, we were celebrating life itself. Our wonderful lives woven together over the past 40 years. Not always perfect but always so precious.

So when we spiffed up for dinner and complimented each other on how good we all looked and stepped into the cab for the ride to the restaurant, we were really stepping out on faith. The faith that had brought us this far together and we believe will continue to keep us going together. Our ability to celebrate our love and lives together, rarely being hindered or reminded in any way of my circumstances, was such a great reward for our ability to step out in faith every day that God is with us, hears us, loves us and wants us to have and share our victories. Even if it is something as simple as steppin' out for a night on the town.

Do yourself a favor and step out on faith. Believe God for what you know to be His will for your life. Your rewards will be great and they will be varied.....anywhere from spectacular scans to spectacular birthday weekends. I am so eternally grateful for both.

"But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." James 1:6