In my mind I'm goin to Carolina ..

Play by play of my first few days on vacation.

December 23rd, my father baby sister and I  woke up at the buttcrack of dawn and hopped onto a plane to meet up with my mom,brother and sister in Atlanta,Georgia.

Once we landed we walked around Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta then stopped at some random place for lunch.After that..we went to The World Of CocaCola. [For any of you who have been to my house or have heard of my mother,you know what a Coca-Cola addict she is]. I wasn't really expecting anything big from this place.But I was in for quite the surprise. Right when we walked in my mom started crying. Kind of hilarious, but I can see where she's coming from. It's like one of her dreams coming true. Besides the cool Coke figures / Posters / EVERYTHING there was this ginormous cocacola bear who took pictures with people. There was person inside so he moved..it was so cool. Mom took a picture with him by herself and he kissed her. So cute. Then the family took a picture with him which was sweet. Then we went to a 4D movie where the chairs you sat in would move up and down or side to side based on what was happening in the movie. And whenever there was water in the movie water would fall down from the ceiling AND there were bugs in the movie, and when the main character got bit by a bug there was something in the back of our chair that pinched us haha it hurt so bad but it was so cool. At the end of the day we went to this room where there was every coke product drink ever made. They had stations by continent , it was soo cool. We drank sodas from Africa ! [I'm obsessed] and every other place imagined. After that we walked around Atlanta a little longer then headed to Greenville, South Carolina where my sister and brother live. The next day we went to lunch together, then mom Julia and I went shopping together in Mauldin,South Carolina.

That night we went to Brookwood Church [where my brother Jared works] in Greenville. Where we had a nice little Christmas Eve service. And then we all opened our presents that night.

This morning we woke up and opened our stockings and ate breakfast together. Then we went to the movies in Simpsonville,South Carolina,which was an interesting experience..haha and when we cam out of the theater.. IT WAS SNOWING! So now we are back in Greenville and having a white Christmas.The snow is coming down hard. It's so beautiful. WHAT A GREAT DAY! Happy birthday to my beautiful Savior <3

You are treasured.You are sacred.You are His.

DAY 4

So lost in absolute LOVE for my Savior. His satisfaction should be all that I seek.

To every girl, [as hard as it may be to believe sometimes]
God thinks you are BEAUTIFUL.
You are treasured.You are sacred.You are HIS.

Everyone knows girls were made differently than boys, the female gender tends to seek self acceptance from other people. Which makes absolutely no sense at times. We seriously just want to be loved , but wake up and realize that what's here on earth will never be enough. It doesn't have to be miserable, because there's something else out there besides what we see .. His name is Jesus. Start seeking Him with all of your heart and that emptiness and self doubt will start to vanish.

Beautiful by Mercyme has totally shaken me the past few weeks.
Love songs inspired/sent from God beat Bruno Mars any day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2o0jHNRuU&feature=related

What I am starting to uncover this week ..

Iam valuable because  :


- God made me, I belong to Him.
Psalm 100:3-
Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; 
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.


-I am precious to Him.He would trade lives for MINE.        Isaiah 43:4 -   *one of my favorites!*

Others were given in exchange for you.I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me.You are honored, and I love you.

- God provides me with EVERLASTING love.
Jeremiah 31:3 -

The LORD appeared to us in the past,saying:

   “I have loved you with an everlasting love;
   I have drawn you with unfailing kindness."

- I am worth EVERYTHING to Him.                                   Matthew 10:29-31   -

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

-- Iam His friend.

John 15:15 -

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

- Through Him, I can be at peace with myself.

Romans 5:1 -

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace 

with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

To An Angel ;

   Mrs.Workman -

My memories of you have been nothing but wonderful. Yet, as I'm writing this tears are filling my eyes because it just hit me what has happened. Nobody knows the joy you brought to me. The way you talked about little Mindy, and the heart you had to adopt her. You showed her off like she was your precious china doll. You gave that little girl everything, and I loved being able to be apart of that. Giving Mindy dance lessons was the coolest thing.

You made chemistry so happy and fun, WHO DOES THAT?! I remember when you would walk to the back of the classroom and put on your little cheese hat and scream "IM FROM WIS-CAN-SIN"and tell us inappropriate stories about your family.
You definitely embarrassed the heck out of me in front of the entire class,but I don't even care anymore.haha.

You were so strong for each of your students and your family throughout this whole battle. I'm so proud that you "hung in there" as long as you did. You were truly an incredible woman of faith, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of your life.

Love you cheesehead.

REJOICE REJOICE AND AGAIN I SAY, REJOICE !

   Yesterday I woke up around 6:00am to get ready for school and the rest of the day. Soon after I woke up,my mom was awake. She had chemo scheduled yesterday,and on chemo days she doesn't sleep much. What the rest of the world didn't know,besides my family, was that yesterday was supposed to be her last chemo because of a lot of things that have been happening. Knowing it was her last time,there were a lot of  emotions running through the Hutcherson house. I got to hold my mom and cry with her for a little bit yesterday.  While the chemotherapy from hell was ending, and that was exciting , the fight still isn't over. There are some surgeries and other things down the road.
    I went to school yesterday sporting my mom's breast cancer awareness shirt and my breast cancer ribbon shoelaces.Right after I got out of school I rushed over to the chemo center.I got there and everyone was packing stuff up,I was so confused.  -The Doctor checked my mom's counts and wasn't happy with them,so they just decided she didn't have to go through chemo. Which means ..
NO MORE CHEMO THERAPY FOR MOMMY!

WOW. What a blessing. Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors during/the following weeks after mom goes through chemo. It's suckville.

After receiving the news,the fam went out to lunch to celebrate along with cancer survivor and friend Tammy Coleman. It was great !
Our family still can't process how real this is considering going to chemo and the doctor visits have been a regular part of our every day life for quite some time.

As said before,we're not completely finished.KEEP PRAYING!

Romans 8:37 In all these things we are more than CONQUERORS through Him who loved us

BOO! [bies].

 Some of you may know this amazing lady below.Yeah,that's my mom aka: Vern  aka: My hero.She has been awesom throughout her cancer battle,and I'm so proud of her.Prayers are always appreciated,we hope that she gets to end this fight with this nasty disease SOON! If you want to help support / spread my family's story visit http://inspiredlooks.org

I'm sure you've seen or heard all the ruccus. October is usually connected to pumpkins and Halloween and whatnot .. this year October has a totally different meaning for me. It's breast cancer awareness month. This is a topic very close to my heart [no pun intended].
 Around March of this year, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer.I thought that was tough..then on May 15th it got a lot more shaky when my mom told us she too had been diagnosed with breast cancer. My world was forever changed. I've had many experiences with friends and family having cancer, so I thought I knew what to expect.I was wrong. Nobody can ever say they "know what you're going through" unless they've experienced their own parent dealing with cancer firsthand.
   
   Watching someone be in so much pain scares the living daylights out of me.Especially when it's my own mom, one of the people who could always make me feel better by giving me medicine or doing other motherly things like simply kissing my booboos to make them go away. Now she's the one who's sick and there's nothing I can do about it. It sucks. It's not something you can just give her some medicine and she's good to go. The weeks alternate on how she feels,some weeks she just straight up throws up everything she has eaten,which you probably didn't want to hear, but you know in that situation there's nothing a person can do. Other days she's stuck in bed because she's in so much pain from her chemo. Everyone around her is helpless.
    I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through this nightmare.
GIRLS; please please please take care of yourself. Check yourself. And older women,make sure to schedule your yearly mammograms , it can save your life.
*treasure your chest*
   

Every sixty-nine seconds a woman dies of breast cancer, but believe it or not , women aren't the only ones who can be diagnosed with breast cancer.Men can get it too! No matter  the gender of the person diagnosed,it completely changes the lives of those who love that person. 69-seconds.org

God,come to me.Make me who You want me to be.

     Entering your last few years of high school , everyone faces the questions "Where do you want to go to school ?" "What do you think you want to major in?" .  At first it felt like everyone around me had their lives already figured out. It made me nervous for a while , then I soon realized that wasn't exactly the case and I didn't need to be nervous. Those people didn't have their lives all figured out, and some of my older friends have already changed their major a multitude of times. Just that little bit of information made me rest assured that I would be fine. I'm already in college and I still have no idea what exactly I want to major in or where I want to transfer to. I have ideas , I'm just extremely indecisive in general. I don't want to make a wrong decision.
   The other day my friend's dad stopped me in the hall at church and we talked about my school life and what not. I told him about my situation and my indecisiveness, and at the end of our conversation he laid his hand on my head and told me he would be praying for me. I can't tell you how good it made me feel to hear that. To know that somebody else would be praying for God to show me what I need to do not only gave me peace , but made me come to the realization that I need to be praying about this situation more myself.
   Throughout my life leading up to where I am now , I've learned from personal experience with my own family not to necessarily go with what's going to get you more money, or do whatever so and so tells you to do. Go with what God says , and he'll take care of the rest. He's proven himself faithful to my family in that aspect.
                                            Philippians 4:6

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. 

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

  This verse was first brought to my attention at a young age, I'm pretty sure I was in third grade.

   In kids choir we sang a song "Don't worry about anything , instead pray about everything.Tell God what you need and thank for what he has done..If you will learn to do this, God's peace will come. You won't understand it , but God's peace will come." We did the hand jive to it and everything. Pretty legit for a bunch of little kids leading worship.  

This verse has helped me through so much. Who knew a cute little song could be so useful ?

Needless to say, I'm extremely anxious for what God has in store for me. I just want to hit the ground running already and start my life. Right now, he wants me to wait and I'm starting to be ok with that. Regardless, I can't wait to see what he turns the little girl that I used to be into :)

What can I do but offer this heart oh God completely to you.

 Mom had to go to the hospital this morning because her counts were lower than they've ever been and she was now anemic. She had to get her first blood transfusion today. It was seriously the weirdest thing watching somebody else's blood going into my mom's port.
At first just getting used to the idea of my mom having a port and seeing her  hooked up to medicines in general was strange for me, now THIS?! Where the usual bag of clear fluids or chemo meds usually hung , there was now a frozen bag of blood .. GAG ME. To make matters worse, the nurses came in and were like "oh cool this blood is blue!" and would make other comments that made me want to turn and be like "REALLY?! I'm kind of trying to eat my lunch here people."

Through it all , mom had a great attitude as usual. I don't know how she does it.

Thank you to the donor , wherever you are , for helping make my mommy better.
We're hoping to not have many blood transfusions in the near future, but if needed, I'm sure it would make us feel a lot better if we actually knew who the hecks blood was going to be flowing through my mom's veins. She is O+ , if that means anything to wannabe donors out there.

Allow God to move through you to "fuse" into somebody else's heart today.They just might need it :)

Love others. Love yourself.

  It has been two years today since my friend Stephen committed suicide. I don't know if anyone could have stopped him from doing what he did , but I know I don't want anyone else to go through anything so horrible.

There's an organization called To Write Love On Her Arms [TWLOHA]. People wear their shirts all the time, and write "love" on their arms every few months but not everyone knows the story behind the organization and why they're wearing that shirt or writing love on their arms. To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. They have a really cool story , and it's faith based. If you want to read their story / buy merchandise now that you know what exactly this is , visit http://www.twloha.com/ .


1 Corinthians 6 : 19-20     "You are not your own , you were bought with a price."
I repeat :YOU WERE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. A pretty large one at that .. 
Jesus died so that we could experience LIFE !   "You are not your own." - who are we to decide when we should leave this earth ? It's like slapping Jesus in the face. 
If you're still alive, there's a reason ! 


Ironically enough , it's suicide prevention week. Crazy.  
Everyone can do their part. Reach out to someone this week. And don't let it stop there, continue even after this week is over. I had no idea Stephen was going to do what he did to himself , but I know that if we all knew what was going on in his head , we would have tried to help. So I'm starting to reach out now , before those awful thoughts enter another person's mind and it's too late. 


The Bible tells us to love one another as we love ourselves. If you're totally content with your life , share that feeling with others ! 
John 15:17-"This is my command : Love one another."
It's hard to love others when you don't love yourself. So build someone up today. 
Sometimes it can be tougher than it sounds . At times the people you love the most are the ones we fight with on a pretty regular basis. But try making an effort , it's the first step :)


Don't let today pass by without telling or showing the people you love how much you care.

Celebrating the life of Stephen Daniel Barrios.

 The last five words anyone heard from you before you left the earth were "I don't hate my life." You said you weren't strong enough to handle the world anymore. Leaving was probably the most selfish thing you could do, and you even said that yourself. Now every September 2nd and 9th those strange feelings come back knowing I'll never see you again , not even in Oklahoma , until I meet up with you in heaven.

Today is your birthday, I'm trying to make the best out of it by thinking happy thoughts.When you lived with Zach and were one of my neighbors is definitely something I remember. I would walk down the street and see you skateboarding outside and then I would come home and you would leave me a comment saying how lame I was because nobody "takes walks" anymore. Spanish would have been lifeless without you, just ask anyone in our class. We would always share random stories about Jackie & Becca and freak out because we both lived in Oklahoma at some point. Anytime anybody heard the word "YAHEW!" in the hallways of churchill, along with your many other phrases, they knew Stephen was comin. It's just the way you were.

I won't ever forget September 9th. The night before , back when we all had myspace , you posted a blog with extreme hints that you were planning on leaving. I read it and immediately texted Becca&Jackie. I didn't know whether to believe it or if it was some kind of cruel joke. Nobody knew what was going on and whenever anyone tried to call you , you didn't say a word. I barely slept that night just wondering. Throughout the day Zach was keeping everyone posted and sending texts. Then after my first period , I remember I was in dance , I looked at my phone and I had a text from Becca. "He's gone." - my heart sank Stephen. You hurt so many people , but I know you're with God now and you're happy. And I'm so thankful that the only memories I have with you are good ones.
^ That picture is the only one I still have of us. You're part of the reason I take so many pictures , so just in case anyone else decides to leave me , I'll have more memories of them.

There's a reason I'm writing this on your birthday instead of .. that one day. I'm celebrating your life ! And the joy you brought to everyone , I'm looking at the positive side. Thank you for being my friend Stephen :)

"I know I saw a light in you, as we walked we were talking I didn't say half the things I wanted to...I can't help it if you look like an angel."

I'm only good at being young.

Didn't exactly wake up feelin' like p-diddy this morning .. I knew a strange day awaited me.  Before I left for school my sister & my brother in law came over to say their goodbyes. They moved to South Carolina today..  After we took pictures and exchanged hugs I took off for my first day of college. Luckily I had great favor when it came to parking.(You know parking is bad when you get so excited about finding a spot that you write about it in a blog) ..LAME.  I went to my first class and the professor never showed up, so my whole class sat outside in the hallway and got to know eachother haha. Perfect way to start college ? Maybe.   And I survived my other two classes !

                    Psalm 28:7 

 ⁷ The LORD is my strength and my shield;
       my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
       My heart leaps for joy
       and I will give thanks to him in song.

I wasn't as nervous as I expected myself to be. Thank God. [literally]. 
I got everywhere on time and got back home in one piece. woowoo !


After I got home from school I headed off to get a haircut. 
.. Actually more of a hair CHOP. I donated 7 inches of my wonderful locks.Last time I donated my hair it was in honor of my friend Caty. There's only so much one can do for a cancer patient , so donating my hair made me feel like I was doing my part. This time when I donated , I did it in honor of my mama :)
Once I finished up with my haircut I headed up to the medical center to suprise mom with my new hair while she was receiving her chemo.

Chemo will start to kick into her system within the next couple of days. Mom isn't too excited about experiencing what she experienced with her last treatment , so pray she doesn't have to! Please & Thank you . 

Lots of love XOXO ,

Alex

First Post .. Here we go

It's been way too long since I've written one of these. I don't even know where to start.
So let's start with the basics.
Around May of this year my mother was diagnosed with TNBC [triple negative breast cancer]. Since that day,my life hasn't been the same. I walked the stage and graduated to the next chapter of my life, being a college student, just weeks after receiving the news. Never in a million years would I have pictured my graduation day with me carrying the thoughts that I carried. I also didn't imagine me staying so close to home my first year for college , but that's what's so funny about God. He likes to take the plans I make for myself and laugh , then show me how much better his plan is for me. Staying close by has proven to be just what I need right now.
The day after graduation I hit the ground running. I drove up to Camp Tejas in Giddings ,Texas to be a camp counselor. I worked up at the camp for about a month , then came home and we started taking care of mom. First step was receiving a double mastectomy. Even the day after surgery the woman was as joyful as could be. As she was healing from that surgery we went to an appointment with her oncologist where she was told on top of the surgery , she would need to receive chemotherapy. She didn't even fully recover from her first surgery before they cut her open again to insert her port , which is where she receives chemo. At the end of last month mom had her first chemo treatment . I knew chemo wasn't good , but I never imagined it to be so horrible. Mom didn't take the first round of chemo well, at all. As a matter of fact , she ended up hospitalized a few days after her treatment because of a number of things that went wrong. She has only had one treatment and she already started losing hair. We shaved her head a few days ago , and the woman is still beautiful. She receives her next treatment on August 23rd which just so happens to be my baby sisters first day of high school [ahhh!] , my first day of college , AND the day my sister and brother in law move to South Carolina. Very emotional day for my family , but if I've learned anything about us throughout all of this , it's that we can tackle anything together.

Prayers would be much appreciated for 23rd as far as chemo goes.

Lots of love <3
- Alex