Shanna (Decker) Lunasin is a 32 year-old Jesus-loving, childhood cancer survivor and amputee (with a backwards leg) turned professional mentor for thousands facing childhood cancer. Shes the founder of Childhood Cancer Community and has been a professional speaker since age 7. Contact her to inspire your event at www.BecauseLoveWins.com!
There is a song that I really love by one of my favorite bands, Sanctus Real. It’s called We Need Each Other. Here, have a listen:
The premise is basically that we all need to love each other. Never have I felt such truth than when I moved to a new city, with new people, and three children whom I knew well passed away right away. I miss them. I miss college. I miss my best friends.
But here, Jesus has provided. And He always will. And those people are always going to be important. And so will the new ones.
Here are the blogs of two best friends of mine. One old, one, new. Beautiful women.
I love you, friends. And we all need each other. Be vulnerable and let yourself love. Let it be real.
Justin Bieber recently released a new song. (They say it was leaked – but that doesn’t actually happen. People don’t just let songs slip.) It’s called Nothing Like Us. It’s about his beautiful-world-watches-us relationship with a stunning girl in new dresses and a boy in sneakers who wants to change the world.
And I really like it. Probably my most favorite song he has ever written. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s beauty to everyone that watches this young man’s life.
I like it because it’s easy to covet the lives of celebrities. It’s easy to want to be them, and have the things that we see. It’s easy to want the lies around them of how happy they are. How beautiful they look with make up on and walking a red carpet. How put together they are when they sit down at night and wonder who they even are.
What strange pieces of hope on which the world chooses to focus.
But Justin, and most celebrities who stand their ground as firmly as possible are so special. They are God’s way of reaching into the hearts of 30 million twitter followers and share with them that there is human everywhere. That no one is super-human, and that no amount of money will fix what hurts in the world.
In fact, they show us that having the super-human life of Justin Bieber may be harder than our own. And that even if you’re Justin Bieber – wildly talented, and seemingly having “everything”, that you still deeply need to be loved.
Heartache is real. Success is real. Hope is real. But His name is Jesus.
And I love this song because it shows that Justin Bieber, just like all of us, are human. And we need Someone greater than ourselves every day, because we reach our ends.
You came little and adorable, and left us very soon. But you taught us to smile. And reminded us to be cool. You were kind and forward. You were alive and giggly. You were a pro and an amateur. And you were light to the world around you. You were many things to many people. But to a lot of us, you were a dream maker. For most dream lives away waiting for someone who can light it up. And you, you sir, made our dreams come true.
This is one of my favorite songs, forever, and for always. You are a beautiful thing. Because God made you that way. Accept it, and let it be beautiful.
“It’s times like this you must be calm. You gotta work it out, make it stronger, try for me, just a little longer. You say love’s a fragile thing, made of glass, but I think your heart is a muscle.”
Our hearts do not just break. They hurt when they stretch, but they get stronger after that. Don’t you give up. You will not break.
You may remember him from a previous blog post. He’s a very old 5 years old this year. I met him a little over a year ago, when he was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, the same cancer I had 14 years ago. The cancer is a rare form of bone cancer and resulted in us both having Rotationplasty.
He allows me the time to be a part of his life and laughs with me while we play. He fights strong, he’s kind, sweet, and loves his parents. He is a pro video gamer, and has learned to walk as well as me at the age of five. He’s the hero of many, and he is the version of honest that makes the world’s hearts smile.
This Thanksgiving, Kaden is still battling his cancer hard. After it came back, he told me that it was, and that he didn’t want to have to be in the hospital. He wanted to play with his puppy and be a 5 year old. I want that for him too.
You can join in prayer and encouragement of Kaden’s journey by following their new page on facebook: Prayers and Love for Kaden. Kids should not have cancer, and while we work on fixing that, let’s also work on making sure these families facing this atrocity never do it alone.
This holiday season, give your joy and prayers, away.
…because love wins.
*Kaden and I met through an organization near and dear to my heart, Brighter Tomorrows. Feel free to find out more about non-profit here.
If you have not seen the Mayo Clinic educational video done about Rotationplasty which takes over the internet for all things Rotationplasty, please see it above.
When I had cancer, I didn’t have a video (nor very many people) to help me decide if Rotationplasty was good for me. But, when I started to re-learn sports and mentor other children with the procedure, I knew this had to change. So we made video after video. At Mayo Clinic, each patient facing this operation meets me, and is given a copy of this to watch on repeat. I get to be what I never had, for others.
Today, I often find messages from people all around the world in my inbox saying things like:
“It was your videos with the Mayo Clinic that convinced us rotationplasty was the way to go. Up until then we were (in our minds) sure that limb salvage was best, but after meeting patients who have had both and seeing your video, we knew in our hearts rotationplasty would allow our son a productive and active life. Thank you.”
Today, I am thankful for being alive. Thankful for Rotationplasty, and incredibly thankful to have the opportunity to walk others along the path I walk.
Because Love Wins 