Remember Eden, the Shepherds student whose mom was just diagnosed with a third occurrence of breast cancer? And remember Shepherds was on off-site retreat last week when the news came down?

Both Linda and Eden have given me permission to post this excerpt from the blog/journal Eden turned in about the retreat. It brought me to tears today.

"An Excerpt from my daughter Eden's blog that she sent out today, February 26, 2023:

We had our annual retreat this year. The theme was " The Amazing Race." so we had different colored teams I was black but there were also pink purple white red blue teams and we all competed against each other so we had different challenges and clues we had to play for example we had to go to a church and we had to taste test 8 different baby foods and that messed me up but don't worry I was able to get better within 24 hours We want to the fire station and we had to figure out what kind of ice cream puzzle. and that was fun. So that was one out of 2 teams. The other team I was on also had teams with different countries. In the mornings we had sessions and we learned more about our character traits.

Dilligence

Initiative

integrity

respectful

responsibility

discernment

And that was fun learning more about them. I have been very distracted lately trying to redirect my emotions by talking to friends, spending time with friends, church activities classes Culinary Friday Fun Library club Impact Advising Wacky Wednesday grocery shopping so that I don't focus on how I feel because I just found out recently that cancer came back to my family.

When it comes to life and death not only does it make me sad it also makes me feel lonely and I don't like feeling those feelings so that is why I try to distract myself so that my friends at school won't ask personal questions but I can at home because I have my parents Godparents and my Pastor plus my brother and sister in law to help me to get through. Now I understand why God wanted me to be here in school. He is getting me prepared socially, spiritually and also independently plus he told me," Eden you are here for a reason. I wanted you here because I see you grow in and those are the ones I want you to focus on. And one day when I do call your parents they will have the peace of mind that you are independent."

God is good

Eden Rapp"