Love
I reluctantly prayed and asked God to show me where my heart needed to be cleaned out. And He did. Quickly. I was convicted of loving what is safe. What is lovely in my eyes. What I approve of. God also brought to mind Luke 6:32 -
Admittedly, it is easy for me to love those who I find to be loveable. Those who are similar to me. This is especially true with Lucas, our two-year-old with Down Syndrome. I have an incredibly hard time with him for a variety of reasons. When he was born he was whisked away to the NICU and there he remained for 3 months, in both Knoxville and Nashville. We almost lost him. He was really sick and no one was quite sure why. We knew he had a major heart defect and narrowing of his pulmonary artery, but there were other unknown underlying causes. I think eventually it was decided that pulmonary hypertension was the culprit. Then he had two heart surgeries in Boston. After the first one, we went back to Tennessee, but within a month he was back in the PICU for a month sedated on a vent and then med flighted back to Boston for his second surgery. Since then, he has been doing very well. He is no longer on oxygen. He doesn’t turn blue anymore. He has been healthy. He does still have a feeding tube and getting him to eat is a daily battle. He won’t take any fluids by mouth and will only eat baby food. Anything else he will gag and/or spit it out.
He is nonverbal and doesn’t walk or crawl yet. He does Army crawl and cruise though.
All this to say, God knew what a challenge this would be for our family and daily I am humbled by many things with Lucas. God has shown us so much mercy and grace with him. It is not always easy to love him. I am ashamed as his mother to say this. I battle with the guilt of that, especially because in all honestly he probably shouldn’t even be alive. I did miss out on a lot with him. I missed the bonding experience completely. We didn’t even get to hold him until he was 8 days old and getting to hold him after that was rare. I didn’t get to nurse him, but I did get to pump for 3 months.
It has been a lot.
But, it doesn’t stop with Lucas. Lord, I want a softer heart. I want to love others as Jesus does. I want to love children the way Jesus does. I want to stand for Jesus and be a light. Only possible through God’s grace and the Holy Spirit.
Thankful God answered me today.
Comments
Post a Comment