Remembering

September 2, 2013 heart defect, Kam 0 Comments

My mind has been doing the very same thing this week that it did three years ago. In 2010, our son, Joel {aka The Thai Tornado}, would be celebrating his first year home in the coming days and I couldn’t get the images, the smells and the memories out of my head. They came flooding back with the entry of September.

And in like fashion, Gabe {aka our Little Prince} was a “September baby” for us. And so those same experiences, in a different land, are replaying in my head like a classic movie. One that you want to watch over and over at first and then you kinda forget about for a while. Until something triggers it again. Then you can’t get enough of it for a time.

I’m stuck on that movie this week. That movie of Gabe and us becoming family. The movie that will never win any awards but is an Oscar contender in my life. Not because it’s worthy of any accolades whatsoever. Those belong only to God. But because it holds the images, the sounds and the experiences that are burned into my memory.

So I’m pondering and reliving our lives from this time last year. How on this night {I’m writing this on Sunday because I’m a terrible NHBO contributor and my post is due TODAY!}, how on this night, the Sunday before Labor Day, we were meeting our Gabe. It was actually Monday morning, of course, in China. How I was so glad that our kids back home could wait up late into the night to meet their brother via FaceTime because with the holiday, there would be no school the next morning. And how Jase and I had been awake in the middle of the night {Sunday afternoon here} singing “Happy Birthday” to Joel through heavy tears via Skype.

A year ago.

An entire year with our Little Prince.

So much grace. So much love and complete joy in grafting him in.

For months, this video made me so happy…happy that Gabe didn’t cry and wail when we took him. Happy that he quietly came to us without a fight. Now, a year later, it makes me a bit sad. He was scared to death. BRAVE. But terrified at first of course.

Yet God in His grace made a way for Gabe. Unworthy as we are, He made a way through Jase and I. And I know without question, there are many of you whom He would use in the very same way.

Take a leap of faith, y’all. Dare to see the orphan as God does. Risk fear and heartache and financial strain and difficult days. Trade them in for all that stands to be gained…the love and joy of a forever family. The sound of your child whispering your name in the middle of the night.

Because in the whole of it, He makes beautiful things.





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