Healing

After lunch we sat on the deck with five of our children. The sixth played at a neighbor's while we  shared our hearts with the others. We needed them, the team to surround their younger brother with acceptance. 

His pain has been boiling over onto everyone. Rejection rules his little heart and everyday has become a tightrope that we all walk to avoid a meltdown. The other children can't quite wrap their young minds around this kind of anger that spills on them without warning. 

 

After we accepted his referral during the adoption process which means we signed papers saying "yes, we want this child", we received news from his medical exam that doctors in Ethiopia believed he had MD. Muscular Dystrophy is a disease with no cure. Mostly boys. If this was true, he would most likely be in a wheelchair by age 12. 

 

We grieved and we prayed. We gathered our kids to share with them what the future of our family might look like. Through tears, their dad shared that he would push or carry our new son on family hikes. Our youngest son said that he would help him on the stairs. They rallied around him before they knew him. 

 

Praise God he is physically healthy. No wheelchair. His muscles get stronger every day, but his developmental delays along with the trauma and hurt he has experienced has left him crippled emotionally and sometimes socially. We challenged our children yesterday to protect him, to accept him where he is. To come along side him as they thought they would when we received that scary diagnosis of MD.

 

 

 

We are beginning a journey with counselors and therapists. We pray for healing for our son. We choose hope. We choose to believe each day that God's hand brought our son into our family to find healing. No child should have to experience the pain that he carries. Every child should have sweet memories of their mother. 

 

 

We are loved by a God of new beginnings, of real healing. We are loved by a God who brings beauty from ashes, who invites us to find rest in him, who adopts us into his family and calls us his own. 

 

It may get worse before it gets better. As the hurt finds its way out through remembering, that happens. We will be the walls he can beat himself against. We will be his safe place. 

 

Pray with us as we walk this journey with him. Join us as we pray for God's healing for our son.