Healing & scripture & paperwork

I have friends who have more kids than I do. I mean a lot more kids than I do. People sometimes freak out when I tell them I have 4 kids. I have a couple of friends who have 11 kids, their blogs are linked to the right, Julie and Dorothy. I have other friends who have 5, 6 or other amounts of kids. Crazy, right? By today standards? Add FASD, autism, or other medical complexities to the mix and it seems really crazy.

My friend Julie and her husband Mark have adopted 9 children with various complexities, many of them medical. One of their sweet children is currently hospitalized undergoing a bone marrow transplant. I know some people who think that this might be due to a sin that he or some of his birth family have committed. I don't think this. I think that Elijah is a beautiful testimony of Christ's faithfulness and his grace that he shows us daily. His parents trust and faith is amazing, their strength in God is steadfast and unwavering. Can the Lord heal Elijah? Absolutely!!! If it is His will He will. And many of us are praying on Elijah's behalf. But we are praying for the Lord to use Elijah to glorify His name. Only He knows what the end outcome will be.

I know that the Lord is using sweet Elijah in so many beautiful ways. I know that the Lord is using my own children in so many beautiful ways, including Akila. Her brain is damaged. Yes, God can heal her brain. Yes, we pray for healing. But we also live our life and make decisions daily based on the current condition that we are living with, which is some pretty severe brain damage, at lease severe brain damage in the sense that we are dealing with extreme out of control behaviors.

So, to all of you people out there who like to email me these well intended emails about "biblical healing"; please know that we are praying. Please know that we do not distort biblical scriptures like we believe wholeheartedly you do, and please know that we also love and appreciate you. But enough is enough.

Next topic.

Paperwork. This is what I started out writing about, but I felt led to write about something else first. :-)

Michael is unemployed as of last Tuesday, Aug. 16. That sucks. He worked as a contractor (accountant) for 5 1/2 years before the company he worked for was bought out by another and they phased out the accounting dept. He is now looking for a job, obviously. It is nice to have him around the house, but not nice to not have a pay check. Not nice at all.

We also receive a letter several weeks ago from our insurance company saying they are being audited and need our adoption decrees for all 4 kids and our marriage certificate. Well, we only have this insurance for like, 5 more days, but it is retroactive, so I have to find the paperwork. I finally started to look for it today. I can find birth certificates no problem, but adoption decrees, didn't even know I had them.

Have spent several hours digging, and to no avail. It has been a trip down memory lane, and it has been EMOTIONAL!!!!!! Let me tell you why. Warning, this post is going to get long.

Our kids are all one year apart. Zeke was obviously our last adoption, and he was our most challenging, as he was a preemie. He was high risk when we adopted him, and it was crazy at the beginning!!!!! Imagine having a 1,2 and 3 year old and adding a preemie to the mix. And also, imagine that the 3 year old is starting to exhibit some odd behaviors, but just barely, just kind of barely on the radar. Stuff that a first time mom is kind of feeling is odd in her stomach, but doesn't know why yet?????

We move into a new house. It is Christmas, 2002, we get the call, there is a preemie born in Florida, do we want him. Not much info. We say sure. Thank goodness. Come home with a sweet baby on oxygen, apnea monitor, have no idea what we are doing. First 3 babies had no complications. This is on New Years Eve basically, of 2003. By February, first week, end up in Children's Hospital with respiratory issues. Are there back and forth for several weeks. Lots of complications, don't know what we are doing.

By spring, Akila is also diagnosed with Turners Syndrome. All of a sudden dealing with 2 kids with complications. This is all new to us. OK. God is good. Lots of doctors appt.'s. Lots of complications. Zeke is in Early Child Special Educaiton (ECSE), getting monthly RSV shots. Akila is seeing lots of different specialists, geneticists, endocrinologists, developmental pediatricians, gastroenerologists, cardiologists, etc. Imani and Hezekiah are thankfully doing great.

We decide we need a bigger house and put a offer on a bigger house and try to sell our house (end up not selling or moving). During this craziness, my mom calls one night to say she was brought to the ER with a mass the size of a walnut on her brain. Should be no big deal, going in for a MRI the next day. She dies 11 months later- and lives with us the last several months of her life, highly emotional 11 months of course.

As I have been digging for paperwork in the basement tonight, I have found the house sale paper work with my mom's brain tumor notes on it. Don't think that didn't make me cry. Especially when I knew that some people think that she died due to sin in her life. Which reminded me that they also think I get headaches because I sin. And my brother in-law has allergies because he sins. I digress.

What really struck me as I have spent literally hours digging in my basement for this paperwork, is that I can't find Zeke's adoption decree's. I can find it for the other 3 kids, but not for Zeke. This makes sense to me, as I was the most stressed when we finalized his adoption. I had four kids under 4, one of which had been hospitalized several times. I forgot to mention that in between Zeke's hospitalization's, Hezekiah was hospitalized with pneumonia, and Michael and I and the girls were all struck with some kind of flu bug. It was horrible. The nurses even put me in the family lounge one night I was so feverish at Children's Hospital, and Zeke's dr. even wrote me an Rx which is unheard of. It was a hard time, but one that I look back at and know that God was definitely watching over us.

Before we adopted Zeke, we had just moved into the house we currently live in. I had been organized, somewhat, before that. Once we moved here, I have not really been organized on paperwork. So, I need top spend a few more hours on paperwork looking for Zeke's adoption decree tomorrow. Wish me luck.