Thursday, June 13, 2013

Family - A Gift



One of the hard things with adoption is making sure your other children feel connected and loved even though so much attention is being placed on the new member of the family. This is even difficult with older children. You still want to communicate love and appreciation for all of your children. 
Last Thursday was the last day of school so I made a lunch date with Abby, our eleven year old. I left Jaelynn with Katie and Abby picked the restaurant. We ran a few errands and then had a nice lunch together. 
Thursday evening David and I drove Matthew to Orlando to pick his girlfriend from the airport. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 7:28, but because of a missed connecting flight and bad weather her flight did not arrive until about mid night. Ordinarily this would seem like an inconvenience, but it was actually some sweet time spent with our son Matthew who is now in North Carolina working at a Christian Camp for the summer and then when he returns he will be leaving for college within a couple of weeks. We talked about his senior year, the camp ministry he will be involved in, his girlfriend, church and his future. We also enjoyed spending time with Matt and his girlfriend on Saturday when we drove them to North Carolina to camp. Thank you Katie for taking care of Jaelynn so that your Dad and I could make the quick trip to NC and back.

On Wednesday we took the three girls to Adventure Island Water Park. Abby has been wanting to go there and Jaelynn was excited to go swimming in the lazy river. We had a great day and are hoping to make it back there before the end of the Summer. 

Today was an exhausting day. Jaelynn had an appointment with a spine/ scoliosis doctor. Her appointment was at 8:40 and we were there until after 2 PM, but I think we got a lot of answers. She had several x rays and a Cat Scan. This doctor is now going to talk to her neurosurgeon and I hope to hear from him next week so that we can put together a plan for treating her issues. Her case is very complicated (what every parent loves to hear), but we felt confident with this doctor and will continue to trust The Lord to go before us every step of the way. As we left today the doctor thanked us for the challenge. 
At one point today as the doctor was examining Jaelynn and looking at her test results, he was just baffled by what he saw. I felt a sense of panic and then I read some lyrics to a song that Chris Tomlin sings and that a little friend of ours has been singing the last couple of days:
 I know Who goes before me
I know Who stands behind
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side
The One who reigns forever
He is a Friend of mine
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side

So thankful for the one who goes ahead of us every step of this journey.

On difficult days when Jaelynn is not being the sweet little girl that you see in all of the pictures, I have to remind myself of all that God has done and is doing through this little girl. The thought of her not being in our family or not having a family at all immediately eliminates any frustrations I might feel. As God continues to write Jelynn's story I feel privileged and humbled to be part of it. 

Thank you to all of you who have prayed for Jaelynn and or the rest of our family. We appreciate everyone of you! We will keep you all posted on what the next steps will be.

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