So it is now mid August and Adam has fully recovered from that hospital admission. Friends, it was bad. Thank you for your prayers. We got a call a week after he was discharged from the hospital informing us that the official diagnosis was Salmonella poisoning. I still do not know how Adam contracted Salmonella especially due to his intake being primarily thru a feeding tube still. All the rest of the family was healthy and did not show any symptoms of Salmonella. Anyways, it was scary. Adam was so very dehydrated and it easily took a month to gain his weight and strength back.
But he is back and we are thankful.
I wanted to share a portion of the blog I wrote nearly 2 years ago. I wrote it when I was doing a part of a series called “5 Minute Friday”. We were given one word and allotted 5 minutes to write on that one word. The word was “ordinary” that specific week.
I am sharing this one again because the man, John, who I wrote about came over for dinner a few weeks ago with his family. I am still amazed at how Adam has brought a community around us. This man who we had met in an airport about 2 years ago has a daughter whom I met at a church function in Tallahassee. She came up to me and said “you may not know me but my dad met you at an airport…” and she need not say anymore. I knew EXACTLY who she was and I nearly started crying. It was a week after Adam’s admission and I needed to be reminded of the words her father spoke those years before (that I mention below). So a few weeks after I met the daughter, we had her and her parents over for dinner. We were so blessed by fellowship with them and are amazed at how God always finds a way to make beauty from ashes. There are so many things i could write, but most of all I was just amazed at the goodness of God to use two children with severe diagnoses to mold families more into His likeness. I am thankful to have been grafted in, and 2 years later, I still don’t want out.
_________________________________________________________________
(originally posted October 11, 2013)
Sometimes I wonder,
I wonder at moments like right now, actually.
When it is 4 am and my Elliot has been up all morning and cannot shake the jet lag
His cry wakes Adam up from a much prayed for deep sleep nda both of these little ones are crawling around our house
As if it is broad daylight and the outside is not blanketed by a thick black foggy night quilt
I wonder it at moments like last Monday when we are sitting in the airport
We are the family that gets extra looks and we get questions and looks of concern
We are put into the category of “special needs family”
(“Special Needs” was a group I always pitied and mourned for, until I was grafted in…now I realize the glory within and I never want out…)
I wonder it when Adam’s ostomy bag pops open in the middle of the night
And we have to literally ask the Spirit for Himself
because I know nothing like
“love, joy, peace, and patience”
Is going o be the fruit of my flesh in that sleepy state
I wonder it when Adam is admitted with a fever and the tears stream forth in front of doctors…doctors who I think need to see a woman and mother of strength and not brokenness
I wonder it when we have to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for my boy’s surgeries
When there are countless thousands that have medical bills steeped high and I feel their pain
I wonder it when I hear comments from men wondering why we do what we do
I wonder “Why is my life not more ordinary?”
Why was my Adam born stained with things mortal
Why did Hands, pierced and divine, not heal him in his birth momma’s womb?
Why does Adam have to grow up with a body, scarred by surgeries, getting stares and questions?
Why can’t he be ordinary?
But then I remember that stranger in the airport,
That stranger, who is now a friend.
His comment comes to mind
He had approached us in the airport after seeing Adam’s painting at an Art Festival
He shed tears as he spoke of his daughter who had passed away 2 years prior
And he shared of his 13 years spent loving and caring for her and her “special needs”
I saw his face aglow as he shared of this little one who he clearly missed so much
I did not hear comments of relief or resentment that she was not born “ordinary”
I heard a celebration of the life she lived and the ache within his heart as he missed her presence
And I remember how he said that after her death and when he and his wife had so much “free time”
(Meaning free from all the minutes in a day that may have been spent caring for her)
He realized that all those concerns that people had for them,
That they were “missing out” on ordinary pleasures
They were all empty concerns
Because he realized how much he came to know the heart of the Father
Through the “inordinary” moments
And then He spoke those words of Life, from the Word, Living
He said that he realized, after this daughter had passed away that it is really true,
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
But he is back and we are thankful.
I wanted to share a portion of the blog I wrote nearly 2 years ago. I wrote it when I was doing a part of a series called “5 Minute Friday”. We were given one word and allotted 5 minutes to write on that one word. The word was “ordinary” that specific week.
I am sharing this one again because the man, John, who I wrote about came over for dinner a few weeks ago with his family. I am still amazed at how Adam has brought a community around us. This man who we had met in an airport about 2 years ago has a daughter whom I met at a church function in Tallahassee. She came up to me and said “you may not know me but my dad met you at an airport…” and she need not say anymore. I knew EXACTLY who she was and I nearly started crying. It was a week after Adam’s admission and I needed to be reminded of the words her father spoke those years before (that I mention below). So a few weeks after I met the daughter, we had her and her parents over for dinner. We were so blessed by fellowship with them and are amazed at how God always finds a way to make beauty from ashes. There are so many things i could write, but most of all I was just amazed at the goodness of God to use two children with severe diagnoses to mold families more into His likeness. I am thankful to have been grafted in, and 2 years later, I still don’t want out.
_________________________________________________________________
(originally posted October 11, 2013)
Sometimes I wonder,
I wonder at moments like right now, actually.
When it is 4 am and my Elliot has been up all morning and cannot shake the jet lag
His cry wakes Adam up from a much prayed for deep sleep nda both of these little ones are crawling around our house
As if it is broad daylight and the outside is not blanketed by a thick black foggy night quilt
I wonder it at moments like last Monday when we are sitting in the airport
We are the family that gets extra looks and we get questions and looks of concern
We are put into the category of “special needs family”
(“Special Needs” was a group I always pitied and mourned for, until I was grafted in…now I realize the glory within and I never want out…)
I wonder it when Adam’s ostomy bag pops open in the middle of the night
And we have to literally ask the Spirit for Himself
because I know nothing like
“love, joy, peace, and patience”
Is going o be the fruit of my flesh in that sleepy state
I wonder it when Adam is admitted with a fever and the tears stream forth in front of doctors…doctors who I think need to see a woman and mother of strength and not brokenness
I wonder it when we have to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for my boy’s surgeries
When there are countless thousands that have medical bills steeped high and I feel their pain
I wonder it when I hear comments from men wondering why we do what we do
I wonder “Why is my life not more ordinary?”
Why was my Adam born stained with things mortal
Why did Hands, pierced and divine, not heal him in his birth momma’s womb?
Why does Adam have to grow up with a body, scarred by surgeries, getting stares and questions?
Why can’t he be ordinary?
But then I remember that stranger in the airport,
That stranger, who is now a friend.
His comment comes to mind
He had approached us in the airport after seeing Adam’s painting at an Art Festival
He shed tears as he spoke of his daughter who had passed away 2 years prior
And he shared of his 13 years spent loving and caring for her and her “special needs”
I saw his face aglow as he shared of this little one who he clearly missed so much
I did not hear comments of relief or resentment that she was not born “ordinary”
I heard a celebration of the life she lived and the ache within his heart as he missed her presence
And I remember how he said that after her death and when he and his wife had so much “free time”
(Meaning free from all the minutes in a day that may have been spent caring for her)
He realized that all those concerns that people had for them,
That they were “missing out” on ordinary pleasures
They were all empty concerns
Because he realized how much he came to know the heart of the Father
Through the “inordinary” moments
And then He spoke those words of Life, from the Word, Living
He said that he realized, after this daughter had passed away that it is really true,
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
I remember those words from the book of Luke
As I sit here in the early morning hours with these two boys
I look up and see Adam laughing
I realize all the extravagant blessings and love that have been showered on us thru this new season of parenthood
And I remember that actually, when we are His children
His Spirit is within us
So nothing is ordinary anymore
We are sons and daughters of royalty and divinity
And therefore we are not ordinary
Because no matter what our lives look like
The mundane and ordinary become glory when His spirit dwells