This year has been the hardest year I have ever gone through in my life financially, but never once did I ever consider canceling my donations to St. Jude. This is my story and why you too should become a Partner in Hope today.

As they say, when it rains it pours. I've had rounds of financial bad luck this year that have had me screaming to the sky "What are you trying to teach me?!!" I am trying and trying and trying and I just can't make it!!! I have been in a place many times when I've had $4 in my bank account and payday is still a couple days away. I have counted out the change in the junk drawer and in the couch cushions to buy milk and eggs at the grocery store because I didn't have enough in my bank account and not one time during this year did I ever think "Maybe I should cancel my St. Jude donation." Never.

The truth is, no matter how tight my budget gets, I never even notice that $20 come out of my account. I really truly don't. The other reason I will be a Partner in Hope for the rest of my life is because it's $20 I can feel good about spending. I don't feel great about going over my grocery budget, I don't feel good about buying make-up, I don't feel good when I grab that diet coke at the convenience store, but I do feel good about the $20 that goes to St. Jude because I know what they do there. I've seen it for myself.  I also know that if we all come together, if we all give a little, it turns into a whole lot of money that saves these kids lives and gives these families hope.

So far I am rich in being blessed with kids who are healthy. That could change on a dime because cancer can happen to anyone and every parent I have ever talked to who has a child with cancer says "I never thought this could happen to my family." But, today I am grateful that I have two beautiful children who are healthy, who get to grow up.

I'm grateful for my moody, hormone raging 12-year-old who eats me out of house and home and doesn't want to talk about girls. I am grateful for my spunky, life-loving 10-year-old that I get to watch compete in gymnastics. I get to watch them fail and succeed, and laugh and cry, and struggle, and enjoy life. There is no greater blessing than that and there is no greater challenge on this earth than watching your child die. No parent on this earth should ever go through this and yet this is the reality for some families battling cancer. Luckily, because of St. Jude, they are making discoveries every day that save these kids. They have taken the pediatric cancer survival rate from 20% in the 1950s to over 80% today. How can you not be a part of that movement?

How can you have healthy kids that you have the opportunity to love and watch live every day and sit back and do nothing?!

Be a part of this great movement. Become a Partner in Hope. Give these families the hope they so desperately need.

I promise you can afford it.

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