I knew I should have written it all down that night. The night after. But here it is weeks later and I am forcing myself to write and all I have are my notes. Dear future self, listen to this conference by these great speakers on whatever platform is available, it's amazing.
Janna and I and a smattering of her family and friends went to Richfield to listen to a conference by Jon Bytheway, Meg Johnson, and our family favorite, Hank Smith. The conference subject matter was "When life gets hard". I wasn't sure going in how it would play out. Would they talk about crazy hard things in life and we would all leave feeling grateful for the trials we had been struggling with? Would they address something specific I was going through and I would leave feeling empowered? Was it just going to be a pep talk to keep on truckin'? Turns out these guys have done this before. And it was incredible. We walked out of that room laughing, lighter, and yes empowered to keep moving forward when life got hard. It was exactly what I needed. And I am pretty sure it was exactly what Janna needed.
Jan and I spent about 3 hours talking on the drive up and back. We haven't had that much talk time in a long time. Things got real. She has the neatest outlook on her life. She knows her life will be shortened. But giving up and giving in are not part of her plan. She knows it won't help anything to dwell on the can nots, so she focuses on the cans. She posted a quote that said, "True strength is not giving up even when everyone would understand if you did." This is her mantra. She knows what she is doing is hard, it's devastating and scary. But she's fighting every step of the way. I am changed because she chooses joy.
