"I won't quit until I know that I've truly tried"

This year I have a goal. That goal is to grow my hair out and cut it off to donate it to lock's of love or a similar organization. Lately, all I've wanted to do is chop off my hair and have it short again like I did last year. I mean, I like it long, don't get me wrong... but it does get annoying when I have thick hair and a lot of it.

The reason for the title of this blog is that I will not quit my goal to help others just because I am sick of having long hair. My goal is to donate my hair so that someone with cancer can wear a wig and hope. This isn't just a me and my hair thing. This is a I want to help someone get better deal. I refuse to let this be a good idea and have it stop there. This is something important and it could change someone's life. Why would I want to prevent that?

So my hair continues to grow and I continue to remind myself that I can't quit until I know that I've truly tried. Meaning, I will not quit until my goal is accomplished and a cancer patient has a beautiful wig that makes them feel like they are healthy again. This isn't about me. It's never about me.

Giving away pieces of yourself can be such a rewarding experience. When in Mississippi, I definitely learned about never quitting until I knew I truly tried. I did not want to stop a project just because it seemed impossible or that it would take too long. One project that we did was working on a house for a family whose first home burned down. They were moving to another house in the same run down neighborhood and their family was in danger. The oldest son was going to be the first in their entire family to graduate high school. The teenage daughter was staying with an uncle who tried to rape her with three other men. My team needed to get this family back together as soon as we could. The project was scheduled for two days and at the end of the first day it looked as though we weren't going to finish the project.

The next day we set to work early at 8 am and we hit the ground running. We were scheduled to tour a movie set later that day and when I was asked about my opinion on that I said that I was not going to allow my team to leave the property until the project had been finished. I was not going to quit on this family and I was not going to let my team do that either. There was still so much trying to do! We still had a ways to go!

At the end of a 13 hour day, we finished the house and got the family all settled in their new home for the night. It was one of the most rewarding days of my life. We were able to reunite this family and get them all safely together. We repainted the entire interior of the house, gutted the kitchen, tore up the kitchen floors, replaced said floors and cleaned the whole house. It was a tremendous project, but we finished it because God gave us the strength to continue trying and to never quit. He gave us the encouragement from one another and the resources to get the projects done as well as the joy in our hearts of knowing that we were really doing something special. We were able to spread God's love and bless His people.

A final thought: don't ever quit. If your heart is fully in something, don't quit. Try until you have succeeded to the best of your ability. God gives us strength to carry on and He is the truth. With God, all things are possible and with faith you can take a chance.