Perspective

We feel so unworthy to be in this beautiful house with 80 other families, having volunteer groups bring meals every day, all the while knowing that members of our church family are lavishly feeding the ones who remain in Asheville. And we feel unworthy when we see what other parents are enduring....the bone marrow transplant families who have been here since January....and know they have months to go. The little boy who was only three when his bone marrow went to save his older brother's life. The 13 year old whose body is just now making blood....and his parents who both lost their jobs to bring him here for the only cure possible. The 2 year old Chinese little one undergoing open heart surgery. The 5 year old whose milk costs $16 per 8 ounce container and is spoiled if he will not drink it in an hour. The 5 year old from a home school family with minor heart and limb issues, spina bifida, whose surgery removed a kidney, discovered a second colon that has to be resected, who now has two drainage tubes at all times. The families here from Macedonia, Romania, Italy, and all over the United States.....desperate to make life last or improve the quality of life for their precious children. Quiet strength under extraordinary stress....heroic folks that are never mentioned in the news. And our little one who still cannot sit comfortably, where every diaper change hurts...especially since they shaved off some of hr pubic bone and she still has the catheter, who asks why she needed a new bottom and why she still needs diapers, whose skin has rashes and burn like marks from all the tape to keep things in place, who will come home for a time even less continent and clean than when she came, and who faces many more trips here with no guaranteed results. And finally, for those of you who do not know, our hearts are a little heavier than you might expect because we know of another little girl who will need this hospital and the one of a kind surgeries offered here.... We are adopting another precious daughter from China who has a similar condition to Cori plus spina bifida. We hope to travel in the spring, but the process has bogged down so many Times that we cannot be sure. Her name will be Ava Lauren. She will be three October 1. So, life is full....of sorrows, of fears,mof joy, and of new perspective on what it means to give thanks at all times, what it means to trust God with everything, what it means to take one day at a time......and on what true heros really look like.