God's Creatures

There are so many parents in the world blessed to have healthy children. Children that can run, jump and call out their parents names. Moms and Dads can some times take for granted that their little miracles can do all these great things. Becoming pregnant is a miracle, giving birth is another miracle and having healthy children is what every parent wants, but not all parents have healthy children.

I was inspired by a blogging friend of mine who posted a blog about one of their friends whose daughter has a terminal illness. She wanted another baby, but wanted to adopt, so she adopted a little girl from Guatemala. The parents were overjoyed as any parent would be on their new bundle of joy. It wasn't until later after they thought they had a healthy little girl that she would be diagnosed with a terminal illness. She had Tay Sachs. I will admit that I know little of the disease. From what I read on her blog that children with this disease don't live much pass six years old. This woman (unbeknown to her) inspires me every day as a Mom to cherish and not take for granted the precious moments I have with my little boy. She doesn't complain about the countless medications she has to give to her daughter, or the daunting knowledge that her daughter will probably not grow up into adult hood. Instead she celebrates every day with her little girl. She takes everything in stride so gracefully, so beautifully even though I am sure her insides are screaming for help, for guidance, for courage and a miracle for her child. She has accepted that God has chose her life to be not so normal. If I may quote her, this is some of her reflections that I just thought were beautiful.

"I keep going back to Hebrews 11, the faith chapter. Normal is not spending a year in an Ark. Talk about life on hold! Normal is not waiting until you are 90 and 100 years old for a child. Most of us don’t like waiting one day for what we want. Normal is not hiding your child for 3 months from a king intent on killing all baby boys. Normal is not giving that baby boy to the very people enslaving and mistreating your people. I doubt Moses’ mom envisioned this life for her son."

Those words are just awe inspiring. Normal doesn't have to relate to your every day living and how you cherish your children. What is normal anyways? What I believe our children teach us and what parents of terminally ill and those children teach us, is to live every day to its fullest. Don't dread on the small bumps in the road because there are far greater things in the world to worry about. There are starving children, parentless children, abused children, and children with terminal illnesses. For one second, just look at your children, your nephews or nieces, your grandchildren, great grandchildren, your friends children and just reflect for one moment how precious life really is and what a miracle they really are.