Faith Over Fear

The blog community is one of my favorite things.  I love knowing that there are people that read my blog that live in various places.  It is one of the coolest parts of the blog world.  

A few years ago I came across this blog.  She was the sister of Sean from The Bachelor.  I immediately fell in love with her blog, two blogs at the time.  She had a food blog and her family blog.  It did not take long before I was reading her blogs everyday.  At the time she was in the waiting stages of going to China to meet her first adopted daughter.  I could not get enough.  Then she went to China and when they came back they had a ton of people who met them at the airport.  It was in that moment that I was reminded of community.  Yes, I love the blog community but real life community is so much greater.  Since then I have begun to read some of her close friends blogs as well.  

I was introduced to someone else through these blogs.  I met Manda.   Manda did not blog herself but her friends told her story.  Her friends asked for prayers for Manda.  Her friends demonstrated loyal friendship, community, and incredible love in the midst of difficult times.  Manda was in the midst of fighting cancer and her story has impacted hundreds of people who never had the chance to meet her in real life.  The blog community is a part of that.  I know that because Shay, Andrea, Erika, Sheaffer, Narci and many others that people all over the world were joining them in prayer for their friend Manda.  

This past Sunday, Manda met her Savior face to face.  Manda is well.  Manda is dancing and praising the one who gave her life.  Her family and her friends are grieving but they know that she is healed and they know that they will see her again.  

Manda's funeral was yesterday and it was livestreamed and over 4,000 people watched her service online.  I think that is incredible and the best part to me was how many people were able to hear about what was important to Manda.  Manda loved her family and she loved her friends but more importantly is that Manda loved her Jesus.  

This video was shared during the memorial service yesterday and I thought it was worth being shared.  Thank you Manda from people who you never met for living out your faith in a way that truly demonstrated your trust in Jesus.  I will continue to daily remind myself of your encouragement to have faith over fear.