This time last year my biggest concern was getting to Cori. I was sewing these matching dresses as therapy to survive the months when I thought we would already have had her in our arms. Now I know God's timing is perfect. But now I know that even US pediatricians and endocrinologists have never seen her condition! So many people say, "Bless you for what you have taken on." We were clueless! So were the Chinese doctors and the first two US professionals! Do you really want to know in advance the trials and tests that will come your way?

We would have missed all of these precious faces if we had known all God knew.

Only two specialists in Cincinnati have seen her file and they want 8 days for diagnostics alone. If we had gone with the local urologist plan then we would lose the option of a bowel plan in the future.

In the final analysis, this is just a child. A brilliant and beautiful child, who was abandoned the days she was born. She needs some surgery. It is serious surgery. There is no "normal" for our children. You know what, I am not normal!!!! I am crippled, as Dr. Jim Henry so beautifully articulated this Sunday. It is easier to overlook the mental and spiritual and emotional wheelchairs we all ride in......but I have the unique blessing of being reminded every single day that I am not equipped . I offer nothing. I have nothing. And if I do not seek the throne of grace, then I am road kill. I have not one single second of personal victory. And yet I praise God! If I was adequate in any single way of my own self, I would not have to fall on my face before HIS throne. I am a goner. I am a failure. I offer nothing.

But I am so completely grateful that that condition throws me to the altar. It is my most earnest cry that all that I love find themselves unable to walk another day without the presence and Grace of God most high.