Sad Hearts Transformed to Smiley Ones

Last night, we celebrated what would have been Chrissie’s 7th birthday.  I’ve got pictures to share below, but first, I’d like to remind you to help us spread the word about the online toy drive benefiting special needs orphans at Village of Hope in Guatemala, in memory of our princess. 

 

Click HERE to read more about that in case you missed it.  We absolutely cannot do this without your help and support.  We need you to help carry out Chrissie’s legacy here on earth.  Help us help orphans in memory of a very special princess who was once a Serbian orphan.

 

There’s lots of ways to help, and there’s even some fun party favors involved!  Read, pray, share, donate.  We’re so grateful for your help.

 

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” –John 14:18

In case you didn’t know, Chrissie’s FAVORITE food in the whole wide world was BROWNIES, so, of course, we celebrated what would have been Chrissie’s 7th birthday with some ooey, gooey, chocolate-caramel overload brownies that Chrissie would have loved.  Yum!

We were blessed to have our precious friend, Rowan, join us for the celebration.  Rowan was recently released from the hospital after his 53rd surgery, with the most recent surgery being a massive brain surgery.  What a miracle to have him standing in our home on what would have been Chrissie’s 7th birthday!

 

Not only did Rowan bless us with a hand-drawn picture, roses, cupcakes, a princess balloon, a hand-made Chrissie bookmark for my Bible, and a beautiful card, but he also blessed us immeasurably by blowing out Chrissie’s candles (see video below).  Rowan is truly a hero, such an amazing inspiration and blessing to many, but such a special young man to our family.  Click HERE to read a little more about his amazing God-connection to Chrissie.

 

God always decorates for Chrissie’s parties.  Can’t beat this custom decoration—God painted the sky with a heart in the middle of the clouds, just above Chrissie’s grave (look at the blue heart shaped sky in the center of the clouds and use your cloud picture imagination to see it):

Chrissie’s horse, Navidad, joined us from the pasture.

After it got dark, we brought some fun glow-in-the-dark pink princess balloons to Chrissie’s grave.  It’s a tradition for us to release balloons in memory of Chrissie, but we’ve never released glow-in-the-dark balloons.  What fun!

The camera flash ruined the effect of capturing the glow of the balloons, but they were really awesome. :-)

We said a prayer, then sang happy birthday again to Chrissie, then released 7 balloons.  (It was really dark by this time, so the camera had a really hard time capturing the balloons.  The night setting on the camera made it look like there were more than 7 balloons in the sky, but there really were 7 glow-in-the-dark balloons released.)

Every single time that we’ve released balloons, there’s ALWAYS one balloon that doesn’t go up into the sky.  Always. 

 

We have a pond on our ranch that Chrissie named “Lake Palic”, after a beautiful lake in Serbia near the small town of Subotica, where Chrissie’s orphanage was.  There’s ALWAYS one balloon that hovers over our Lake Palic.  Always.

 

The three photos below capture the presence of this one pink glow-in-the-dark princess HELIUM balloon that hovered over our Lake Palic after its release.  It didn’t fly toward heaven with the rest of the balloons.  The photos below show the balloon with its reflection in the pond.

 

I LOVE how God sends us reminders of His presence.  When there’s no reason why this one balloon should have stayed around and hovered over our Lake Palic, we have no doubt that it’s God.  He gently whispers His presence to our hurting hearts and somehow turns that sad face to a smile.  He’s just so good at that!

 

And speaking of God’s smiles, here are a few snapshots of what Rowan and his mom brought us.

 

Rowan always draws the best pictures for Chrissie, and his explanations always turn a sad face into a smile. 

And, of course, Rowan’s mom knows how to bring smiles, too.  I love the card she chose for us, but I love the hand-quilted bookmark even more. 

 

God is good, and He displays much of His goodness through the actions of His hands and feet here on earth, the ones who serve Him by loving on others.

 

God is using all of you who have donated in memory of Chrissie to bring smiles to special needs orphans in Guatemala.  When these orphans play with the toys you’re donating to Village of Hope—Guatemala, in memory of Chrissie, the sadness in their hearts will feel the love of their Savior, turning sad faces into smiley ones.  Just as you’ve turned our sad hearts into smiley ones, these orphans will feel that same love.

 

Thank you so much for praying, sharing, and donating.  Keep up the awesome work!  We couldn’t do this without you!!!

Boss Your Heart Birthday Benefit

She had spent the first three, almost four, years of her life in cold metal crib in a Serbian orphanage, waiting for her mommy and daddy to come for her.  When an American woman, a wife to a US Embassy employee, came to visit her orphanage one day, the little girl stole the woman’s heart as she pleaded for this woman to find her mommy and daddy.

The woman thought surely someone in America would adopt this precious little girl who was born with severe congenital heart defects.  Surely some doctor in America could fix her broken heart.  The woman advocated for the little girl.  Several families committed to adopting her, but each time, each family backed out once they found out her heart condition wasn’t compatible with life.

Meanwhile, God was working on the hearts of a family in Texas whom He had hand-picked to be this little girl’s forever family.  He had opened their eyes through a dream, a nightmare that ended up being reality.  The family prayed for God to show them exactly who God wanted them to adopt…they knew it was an urgent matter.

God showed them the photo of this precious little princess, the very princess who had been begging for her mommy and daddy to come rescue her.  The family knew without a doubt God was asking them to adopt her, regardless of the severity of her heart conditions.  And they wouldn’t back out.

In a matter of months, the family was approved to adopt the little girl.  On October 6, 2010, in the small town of Subotica, Serbia, the little girl met her forever mommy and daddy in the lobby of her orphanage.

The little girl placed her hands on her mommy’s face, looked her in the eye, and said (in Serbian), “I love you, Mommy!” She then turned to her daddy and said (in Serbian), “Daddy, I like chocolate.” The little girl had already stolen her parents’ hearts, before they even met her, but tears streamed down their faces as they held this precious treasure in their arms.

On October 8, 2010, the little girl got to celebrate her 4th birthday with her new mommy and daddy at her orphanage in Serbia.  She was a VERY happy little girl, and her parents were overflowing with joy.

Her parents gave her many birthday gifts, which the little girl opened delicately.  She treasured each gift as if she’d never opened a package before, which was no surprise since orphans don’t get gifts.  Her favorite gift was the jewelry, although her parents had no idea she loved jewelry so very much, this is what God told them to bring for her. 



The little girl would no longer be an orphan. She was chosen and treasured, and she knew it from the day her parents walked into that orphanage building.

Her name would be selected by God:  Christyn Joy Patterson, although she would think her name was “Christyn Jewelry Patterson”. She would be called Chrissie, and her name would mean “One who holds Christ in her heart, full of joy.”  She would live up to that name more than her family ever imagined.

She would sleep peacefully, snuggled in the love of her new mommy and daddy.

She would climb into her mommy’s suitcase, eager to cross the ocean to meet the rest of her family in Texas.

She would instantly bond with each and every family member.  It didn’t matter if it was her first day home—she knew without a doubt that each person in this family was meant for her.

She would discover love.

And family.

And faith.

And fun.


And toys.
And more toys.

And even more toys.

And she would radiate JOY to every person she would meet.

She would quickly become the princess of the family, and rightly so.



She would say, “This is MY Daddy and MY mommy.”

She would make many fabulous memories, too many to display in photos. (Click HERE to view a slide show of Chrissie’s life as a Patterson.)

And God would even orchestrate Christian doctors to care for Chrissie and her heart condition, doctors who were willing to encourage Chrissie’s family along the way, doctors willing to take a risk, doctors willing to fall in love with a little miracle princess.

Chrissie’s family would throw her an unforgettable princess party on the night before her open-heart surgery because Chrissie LOVED parties. 



It wasn’t a birthday party, as she had celebrated her birthday in Serbia just six months prior, but the little princess wanted everyone to sing her happy birthday.  So they did.  And she wanted candles.  So they gave her some.  And she wanted so badly to blow out her candles.  Only she didn’t have enough breath, due to her heart condition, to actually blow, but that didn’t steal her joy.

Little did anyone know that would be the last night Chrissie would spend in her home on earth.

On April 19, 2010, Chrissie underwent massive open-heart surgery.  She died that same evening, but God brought her back after 20 minutes.

Then she died again a few days later for an hour, but, again, God brought her back.

On May 19, 2010, Princess Chrissie left this earth to eternally dance with Jesus.

Her forever family would never be the same, but they would always serve and love the same Jesus.  They would start a ministry in memory of their beloved daughter, Boss Your Heart Orphan Ministries.  They would do everything in their power to help orphans in their distress, according to James 1:27.  They would vow to honor their daughter and keep her legacy alive.  While they miss their daughter greatly every single day, they cling to the hope and promise through Jesus Christ that they will one day be reunited again in Paradise.

But while they wait for that day to come, they continue to daily help orphans on this earth, in memory of Chrissie. 

This year, in memory of Chrissie’s 7th birthday, the Patterson family is hosting a virtual birthday benefit so that everyone can participate!  They’ve chosen a specific orphan ministry that is dear to their heart, a ministry they feel honored to support in memory of their daughter.

This year’s online Boss Your Heart Birthday Benefit, in memory of Chrissie’s 7th birthday, will benefit

 Village of Hope—Guatemala. 

The purpose of Village of Hope is to provide family, faith and a future to the least of these by providing holistic orphan care to special needs orphans, primarily focused on those living with HIV/AIDS in a family style setting. Each family style unit will consist of house parents as well as 6-8 children in the home. Our hope is to create a family unit as God intended- a family to provide life- long support as well as teach the children to have life values. The goal is to avoid institutional living and prevent children from being thrown out on the streets when they are 18. Because adoptions are closed in Guatemala there is little hope of the children ever begin adopted into families of their own. One part of our vision is to develop relationship in the Guatemalan Evangelical churches, to come along side of them, educating them on God’s heart for the orphan, as well as open their eyes to the gift of adoption.

Did you know that Village of Hope—Guatemala is a brand new ministry, starting from the ground up?  (Click HERE and HERE to view the blogs of the two American missionary families who are living in Guatemala, building the village brick by brick.)  They started with nothing, and they have watched God faithfully build this village.  It has taken, and will continue to take, much time, dedication, and hard work, but the missionaries and non-profits behind Village of Hope—Guatemala are 100% committed to caring for special needs orphans in Guatemala.  VOH will undergo licensing with Guatemalan authorities this fall, and they will need to have toys and educational items and play equipment as part of their licensing.  Right now, they have nothing in this department, so they need OUR help!

Did you know that YOU can make a difference in Guatemala right now, from your computer?  Yep, it’s true.  Chrissie’s family is hosting an online BOSS YOUR HEART BIRTHDAY BENEFIT to bless Village of Hope—Guatemala with toys, educational items, and play equipment!!!

VOH missionaries and teams have been working so very hard to get the village ready, but there’s something they’re desperately in need of—TOYS!!!!!!

In early 2013, special needs orphans will call Village of Hope—Guatemala their home.  If these orphans walked through the doors of VOH today, they’d find faith, family, and future, but they wouldn’t find much FUN because Village of Hope—Guatemala has nothing for the children to play with—YET!  We plan to change that, with your help!!! 

Remember those photos above of Chrissie playing with toys?  Well, we want ALL of the orphans at Village of Hope—Guatemala to have that same kind of fun!  VOH will provide faith, family, and future, and we want to help them provide FUN as well, in memory of a very special princess who loved to have FUN!

And, besides, what better gift to give at the celebration of a 7-year-old’s birthday party than TOYS?!?! 

So, spread the word and pray, pray, pray, cuz we want this virtual birthday benefit to be BIG, as big as the love and joy our princess shared with us!  (Well, nothing could be that big, but we’re still praying for BIG!)

Now, let us share the details with you. It’s really simple:

• Purchase a toy online by clicking HERE.  This link will take you to the Amazon wish list for Village of Hope—Guatemala.  When you purchase toys directly from this Amazon wish list, when you check out, you will see the option to have the toys shipped to my friend Gina, who will then ship ALL of the toys directly to Village of Hope—Guatemala.  Think BIG—gather your small group buddies, Sunday School class members, neighbors, Facebook friends, and your family to pool your money together to purchase sturdy toys that will withstand much lovin’ from many special needs orphans.  Perhaps you could donate a toy in honor of a loved one as a Christmas gift?  Think out of the box and let’s bless the socks off the orphans who will soon be living at Village of Hope—Guatemala.
• You may donate your gently used toys, in a good condition, to Village of Hope—Guatemala.  VOH will need good sturdy toys that will hold up to the love of many children.  Thrift stores and garage sales often have fabulous toys at fabulous prices.  If you’d like to donate gently used toys, you will need to ship the toys directly to my friend Gina, and then she will ship all of the toys directly to Village of Hope—Guatemala.  Click HERE to contact Gina for shipping details (or email her directly at ginamshiland@msn.com).
• Donate money directly to Village of Hope—Guatemala, in memory of Chrissie.  Tax-deductible donations may be given directly via the Chip-In gadget below.  Our goal is to raise $7,000 because Chrissie would have turned 7 on her birthday this year on earth (October 8, 2012). 
• HURRY, Chrissie’s virtual birthday benefit is only ONE WEEK long!  October 8, 2012-October 15, 2012.    We’ve got 7 days to raise $7,000—that’s $1K per day.  God can do this!  Spread the word, pray, donate!  Help us help orphans in memory of Chrissie.  Thank you!!!
• Oh, and we’ve got some fun “party favors” to throw in.  See details at the end of this post.

 

All donations given in memory of Chrissie during her virtual Boss Your Heart Birthday Benefit will be dedicated to purchasing much needed toys, educational items, and play equipment for Village of Hope—Guatemala. Your donations are tax-deductible and all funds donated in memory of Chrissie will go directly to Village of Hope—Guatemala to help provide FUN (in addition to faith, family, and future) to special needs orphans in Guatemala.

Party Favor Details:

• We’ll be giving away a few items as party favors.  Here’s how you can be entered in the contest to win one of these fabulous prizes:
• Share Chrissie’s Boss Your Heart Birthday Benefit on your Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.  Leave a comment here to let us know.  (One entry per share, leave a separate comment per share please.)
• Donate.  Leave a comment to let us know you donated.  (One entry per donation—it doesn’t matter if you donate money or a new toy or a used toy, just donate. :-)  Leave a separate comment for each donation please.

And last, but not least, here are the party favors:







Thank you so much for praying, sharing, and donating in memory of Princess Chrissie.  Since we don’t have our daughter in our arms to hug this birthday, our hearts are feeling the hugs of the support from all of you.  We are most grateful.

Need a Little Help From My Friends…

OK, a couple of things I need your help with.

 

First is that our Precious Princess Chrissie’s 7th birthday would have been is this Monday, October 8.  While Chrissie is dancing with Jesus, we’re sure missing her on this earth.  We always will. 

 

In memory of Chrissie’s 7th birthday, we’ll be hosting a virtual birthday benefit.  This is something new for us, but I believe God is in the process of stringing the details together.  While we originally hoped to host a benefit in “real life”, I don’t think God had that in mind for this year.  He has something bigger and greater with more eternal impact than my original idea.  He’s just good at planning things like that! :-)

 

So, I would love for y’all to pray for this virtual benefit—that God would pour His blessing upon it.  Be sure to check back Monday for details because we’re going to need YOUR help to spread the news and help us celebrate the life of our Serbian Sensation!

 

OK, the second thing I’d love your help with is in regards to Selah.  We met with her neurologist yesterday.  He recommended we try Vyvanse (and ADHD medication) for Selah during the day to help her brain regulate.  Well, today we tried this, and, yes, after just one dose, we’re afraid to ever give her another one!!!  It’s made her even crazier than her normal!!! 

 

There truly are not words to even begin to describe what Selah’s day looks like.  I want to help her so badly, as I know she doesn’t want to be so out of control.  She actually tells us (in a screaming and crying voice), “Oh, NO, no, no, no, no, no!!!”, followed by a ginormous meltdown, which means she’s not happy about whatever choice she just made, but for some neurological reason, she was unable to control herself. 

 

Selah is a delightful girl who is such a tremendous blessing to our family.  Every single doctor and specialist who has ever witnessed her in action (in their office) is overwhelmed with how we’re making it through each day.  They say things like, “Is she always like this?”  Or “Is this what she does often?” Or “How are you surviving?” Or “She sure is a miracle, but someone needs to figure out how to help this child.”  Or “Wow, you’re a super saint.  I don’t know how you do it!”

 

OK, those are all not things we need to hear.  What we need is medical help for Selah so that she is happy and content, and we are able to make it through each day more easily.  I believe wholeheartedly that ALL children are a blessing, ALL are precious in His sight.  I do not mean to convey in any way that I don’t feel that way when I’m asking for help for Selah.  It’s the same concept as getting an antibiotic when your child has a bacterial infection.  Or pain medicine after a surgery.  Selah needs medication to help her feel and act more “normal”.  And I mean that in a good way.

 

The problem is that there’s no case study of a child like Selah.  There’s no research to examine.  There’s no book to open to give the answers.  Selah, for us as her family as well as for medical professionals, is a new case, an original case, a God case.  What a living miracle this girl is!!!

 

So, Selah’s neurologist told us that ADHD meds would either make Selah “better or worse”, and we’d know really quickly.  This was his first guess at figuring out how her brain works.  He said the next step would be to try Risperdal, a neurotropic medication, but he’s never used it in a child as young as Selah.

 

My plea for help from y’all is to spread Selah’s story and see if you can find someone, anyone, with a child—or who even knows OF a child-- with Selah’s diagnoses and/or Selah’s symptoms (sleep disorder with daytime “craziness” (as everyone refers to it)—meaning her brain can’t regulate independently and her behavior looks similar to what you might find in the crankiest child you’ve ever been around multiplied by 100,000, a child who bangs her head a lot and cries and screams a lot, melting down countless times per day, yet she’s a delightful little blessing from God who can have “normal” moments.

 

If we can find another child like Selah whose parents have found success with medications and/or with other methods, we would have a wealth of helpful info to go by!!!  Please help us in our search!  Thank you so much!  You can contact me privately at BossYourHeart (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment on this post. 

So Every Eye Can See & Every Ear Can Hear

I’m re-posting this message because it got sandwiched with another post when it got emailed out.  My concern with having 2 posts in one email is that people won’t read both posts.  I think it’s vital for EVERY eye to see and EVERY ear to hear Selah’s testimony, so I’m re-posting it again today with hopes that more people’s eyes will be opened and more people will hear Selah’s miraculous testimony!!!

 

Re-post:

 

Type. Delete. Think. Pray. Type. Delete.

I have struggled with how to share much of what we’ve learned about our Selah’s story. Her testimony. It is being written by God, not by me, and yet I have so much I want to shout to the world.

My flesh and His spirit wrestle. They collide, blinded by the dirty goggles that I can’t seem to remove from my eyes, the ones clouded with all the filth of my world.

These feelings cannot subside in my own strength. I want to strangle doctors for recommending abortions when a child is diagnosed with a special need in utero. Why is ALL life not precious? ALL are precious in HIS sight. But too often we operate in the flesh.

Should this child suffer the loss of life by human hands? Doctors and many abortion advocates would argue that this child should not suffer by being born to a “lesser” life.

I ask, “What is your definition of lesser?”

“Who gave you the right to define 'quality of life’?

“Who gave you the right to decide who should live and who should die?”

“Where has our sovereign God gotten lost in life? He is the CREATOR of it!!!”

I struggle. Over and over and over again. Life is a celebration, children are a gift from God, a blessing. We are not the ones to decide what type of children are a gift, what type of children are a blessing. Truly, He says that ALL are precious in His sight. ALL.

Why then do we take it upon our human hands and hearts to decide otherwise?

Why was our Selah’s life spared? What happened that preserved her life? Her birth mother was not a believer. She had no reason to not end this child’s life in utero. Surely the doctors advised her to abort. She claims the doctors wouldn’t allow her to abort the damaged fetus growing inside her womb. I beg to differ.

Googling Selah’s diagnoses proves that doctors would have advised abortion. Doctors would have taken it in their own hands to decide if this child should live or die. Yet Selah survived.

Someone intervened. I know Who that Someone was. But why this child? Why did Selah get spared from an early death by human hands?

Are the numerous insults to Selah’s brain that occurred in utero due to a failed abortion? Did someone attempt to take her life, yet the Master and Creator of her life spared her? I will probably never know, but the One who is writing her story knows. I remind myself that’s all that matters, even though my flesh wants to know the whole story.

God has V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y revealed bits and pieces of the truth of Selah’s story to me. He is very slowly stringing together His testimony of Selah’s life. He, for whatever reasons He knows are best, has chosen to slowly and gently reveal portions of Selah’s history to us, piece by piece, like slowly unwrapping a gift to find there’s another box inside with different wrapping paper, and yet another box inside that box, with yet another type of wrapping paper.

I don’t know how many boxes are inside this gift, how many He will unwrap before our eyes, how long it will take to finally reach the final gift inside, but I fully trust in the One who has chosen to bestow this precious gift upon us. The gifts He slowly unwraps before our eyes are truth. Truth about Selah’s history that reveal the miracles He has performed to add to the testimony of Selah’s life. Gifts we don’t deserve to unwrap, yet He lavishes them upon us anyway.

The gift of celebrating Selah’s 2nd birthday yesterday filled me with many emotions. Particularly because God chose to unwrap another box within the original gift just 12 days ago. He chose to share with us the truth about Selah’s diagnoses. Things we never knew. How did we not know this after she’d been in our care for nearly two years? We’ve visited with the very doctor who shared this information with us more times than I can count, yet he never chose to share the whole truth about Selah’s diagnoses with us—until 12 days ago.

We’d been told that this child should not have been born alive. We’d been told that if she survived, she’d be a ‘vegetable’. We’d been told, after Selah proved not to be a ‘vegetable’, that she would “never be in the top of her class”.

We knew Selah had hydrocephalus, that she had a VP shunt placed one week after she was born because she had 3 pounds of fluid in her skull. The doctors waited a full week after Selah’s birth to place that shunt, believing she wouldn’t survive but a few days—after all, she wasn’t even supposed to be born alive.

We’d been told that Selah was born with just a sliver of a brain and that she had ACC—Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum. This meant she was missing the section of her brain that connects the right and left hemispheres.

Yet we were only recently told that Selah doesn’t have right and left hemispheres of her brain, that she was born with holoprosencephaly. We weren’t told what ‘holoprosencephaly’ meant exactly, but thanks to Dr. Google, we now understand better.

We were also recently told that Selah has Chiari II malformation and numerous brain calcifications due to insults to her brain that occurred in utero. She also has an official label of epilepsy, yet she’s been off her seizure meds for a year now, and she’s never had a seizure since her first month of life in the NICU, before we even knew of her existence.

How can this be? If you google Selah’s diagnoses, you’ll discover that she seriously shouldn’t be alive. According to Dr. Google, as well as all of the specialists who care for Selah, this precious girl really shouldn’t have been born alive.

In fact, we’re not sure if there’s any other living child in the world with Selah’s diagnoses. According to research, these ‘fetuses’ are aborted due to medical reasons/advice from doctors, or in extreme circumstances (where the birth mother refused abortion or the ‘fetus’ went undiagnosed with holoprosencephaly) they’re born dead due to natural causes caused in the brain by holoprosencephaly.

But Selah.

Oh sweet Selah, whose name in Hebrew means to ‘stop and listen, to pause’. Some scholars claim that selah means literally ‘so every ear can hear and every eye can see’. God just told us to give this precious baby the name “Selah”. We did not know His plan, nor His testimony for our beloved Selah. We realize now that she is truly a living testimony of God’s miracles, a life to pause and reflect upon, a life that every eye should see and every ear should hear.

My prayer is that every doctor who encourages an abortion will “stop and listen—pause’’ and think of our Selah’s testimony before they take human life into their own hands.

My prayer is that every birth mother who is encouraged to abort her ‘damaged fetus’ will HEAR and SEE Selah’s testimony and KNOW that our God is capable of so much more than any medical professional can predict or determine.

My prayer is that indeed EVERY ear will hear and EVERY eye will see what our God is capable of. However, if we take life and death into our own hands, we are limiting our ability to SEE and HEAR God. We are telling God that we do not trust in His sovereignty, we aren’t willing to fully submit to Him, we don’t want to believe that His will is better than our own desire.

Not every story ends—or begins--like Selah’s, we know this first-hand. We had another miracle girl whose story ended differently than we prayed, whose life on earth ended sooner than we wanted. But, through it all, God has proven Himself faithful time and time again. Even when God’s will looks different than our own desire, He knows best. He never makes mistakes. Ever.

When we let go of our will and wholeheartedly trust in God’s, regardless of the outcome, we begin to grow into the person He created us to be, submissive, trusting in Him and His sovereignty, relying fully on the One and Only Author and Creator of life. We give God a chance to fully shine His glory in dark places.

Our character is shaped greatly by Him and the things He allows us to walk through. It is a gift to walk through life, and death, with special needs children. There are things He teaches us through these experiences that cannot be learned any other way. Our hearts are forever changed, looking much more like His than we could ever imagine, because that is His plan for us. Our Father gave up His One and Only Son in order that we might have eternal life. Jesus suffered greatly on this earth, far more than any of us could ever fathom, far more than most “damaged fetuses” could ever suffer, even if they’re given a chance to survive on this earth. It is in our sufferings that we become more like Him, for this was largely a part of His life—and His death.

God’s Word reminds us that those willing to give up our lives for Him will have our lives saved, those willing to die to self will gain far more than this world has to offer. I encourage you to die to the world’s definition of “life” and choose to believe wholeheartedly in His definition of life—ALL are precious in His sight. Give Him a chance to prove that to you. Do not walk away from the life He has planned for you. Do not kill a baby because the world says he/she will suffer. Do not listen to anyone but God, for His way is always best, regardless of our fears, regardless of our desires, regardless of what we feel is best. Trust in His sovereignty, even when it looks different than you imagine. He never makes mistakes. Ever.

Brick by Brick

Today I'm honored to share a post from our missionary friends who are starting Village of Hope--Guatemala.  God has done SO MUCH to build this village, a place where special needs orphans with find faith, family, and future, but there's still MUCH work to be done, with very little time left.  But God is able, and we have an amazing opportunity to help as His earthly hands and feet.

Village of Hope--Guatemala is hosting and awesome Christmas auction right now.  Click HERE to purchase some great Christmas gifts for your loved ones, things that won't be duplicates that are tossed aside.  Plus, these gifts will serve two purposes--to bless the recipient AND to help build Village of Hope--Guatemala.  Awesome, right?

And if you're looking for another awesome gift for that someone who has everything, or for that someone who values helping others over themselves, read the post below and purchase a brick in honor (or in memory) of a loved one and help build Village of Hope--Guatemala.

Here's the post I'm sharing via my missionary friends who are living in Guatemala and building Village of Hope with your help (be sure to watch the video and tell me if you see my name (Lorraine)):

Most of us can remember a time in our lives when we felt rejected.

A time when we felt like we didn’t matter. Whether it be the time we were chosen last on recess for the kickball game, or the time we didn’t get invited to the birthday party that everyone else was invited to- we have all felt the sting of rejection.

So what breaks my heart is when I think about how an orphan child living with HIV/AIDS must feel living in a society who constantly treats them as the least, the last and the lowest.

Our God given vision here at Village of Hope is to give these children faith, family, and a future. Yet much work needs to be done in order for the vision to become a reality. But what we know without a doubt is that we are not just building buildings- we are building homes and we are building HOPE.

Right now this very minute there are children waiting. Children who are living with HIV in a culture that rejects them. Schools do not want to accept them; most orphanages do not want to accept them either. And so they wait –in hopes that one day someone will welcome them in, wraps their loving arms around them and tell them they are valued, cherished and loved. And we wait- for the body of Christ to come together and make the vision of Village of Hope a reality for these children.


Give HOPE, brick by brick. Village of Hope - Guatemala from Lifesong for Orphans on Vimeo.

Village of Hope still needs $184,500 for such things as homes for the first orphans and their house parents, retaining walls, perimeter walls, and gates for safety and protection. These things will provide safety, home and HOPE for these orphans.

How can we do this?

Little by little, brick by brick- together we can build the foundation these children need to come to know the one who loves them so much He CHOSE them.

Little by little, brick by brick, together we can build HOPE for their future.

What that will take is for you and I to realize that the God in heaven that is crazy about these children is crazy about us as well. What He wants for us is so much more than a new sweater, a new electronic toy or the latest isomething or other this Christmas. He wants for us is to quit wasting our time, our resources and our talents on the things in this world that do not matter- and invest in the things that do~ His Kingdom.

By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. Proverbs 24 3-4

To help GIVE faith, family and a future to the children at Village of Hope please visit see our webpage here.   ***If you purchase a brick as a gift for someone, you will receive a personalized card from VOH that you may give to the recipient to notify them of your donation in their honor.

Celebrating All Life

Type.  Delete.  Think.  Pray.  Type.  Delete.

 

I have struggled with how to share much of what we’ve learned about our Selah’s story.  Her testimony.  It is being written by God, not by me, and yet I have so much I want to shout to the world.

 

My flesh and His spirit wrestle.  They collide, blinded by the dirty goggles that I can’t seem to remove from my eyes, the ones clouded with all the filth of my world.

 

These feelings cannot subside in my own strength.  I want to strangle doctors for recommending abortions when a child is diagnosed with a special need in utero.  Why is ALL life not precious?  ALL are precious in HIS sight.  But too often we operate in the flesh.

 

Should this child suffer the loss of life by human hands?  Doctors and many abortion advocates would argue that this child should not suffer by being born to a “lesser” life.

 

I ask, “What is your definition of lesser?”

 

“Who gave you the right to define 'quality of life’?

 

“Who gave you the right to decide who should live and who should die?”

 

“Where has our sovereign God gotten lost in life?  He is the CREATOR of it!!!”

 

I struggle.  Over and over and over again.  Life is a celebration, children are a gift from God, a blessing.  We are not the ones to decide what type of children are a gift, what type of children are a blessing.  Truly, He says that ALL are precious in His sight.  ALL. 

 

Why then do we take it upon our human hands and hearts to decide otherwise?

 

Why was our Selah’s life spared?  What happened that preserved her life?  Her birth mother was not a believer.  She had no reason to not end this child’s life in utero.  Surely the doctors advised her to abort.  She claims the doctors wouldn’t allow her to abort the damaged fetus growing inside her womb.  I beg to differ.

 

Googling Selah’s diagnoses proves that doctors would have advised abortion.  Doctors would have taken it in their own hands to decide if this child should live or die.  Yet Selah survived.

 

Someone intervened.  I know Who that Someone was.  But why this child?  Why did Selah get spared from an early death by human hands?

 

Are the numerous insults to Selah’s brain that occurred in utero due to a failed abortion?  Did someone attempt to take her life, yet the Master and Creator of her life spared her?  I will probably never know, but the One who is writing her story knows.  I remind myself that’s all that matters, even though my flesh wants to know the whole story.

 

God has V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y revealed bits and pieces of the truth of Selah’s story to me.  He is very slowly stringing together His testimony of Selah’s life.  He, for whatever reasons He knows are best, has chosen to slowly and gently reveal portions of Selah’s history to us, piece by piece, like slowly unwrapping a gift to find there’s another box inside with different wrapping paper, and yet another box inside that box, with yet another type of wrapping paper. 

 

I don’t know how many boxes are inside this gift, how many He will unwrap before our eyes, how long it will take to finally reach the final gift inside, but I fully trust in the One who has chosen to bestow this precious gift upon us.  The gifts He slowly unwraps before our eyes are truth.  Truth about Selah’s history that reveal the miracles He has performed to add to the testimony of Selah’s life.  Gifts we don’t deserve to unwrap, yet He lavishes them upon us anyway.

The gift of celebrating Selah’s 2nd birthday yesterday filled me with many emotions.  Particularly because God chose to unwrap another box within the original gift just 12 days ago.  He chose to share with us the truth about Selah’s diagnoses.  Things we never knew.  How did we not know this after she’d been in our care for nearly two years?  We’ve visited with the very doctor who shared this information with us more times than I can count, yet he never chose to share the whole truth about Selah’s diagnoses with us—until 12 days ago.

 

We’d been told that this child should not have been born alive.  We’d been told that if she survived, she’d be a ‘vegetable’.  We’d been told, after Selah proved not to be a ‘vegetable’, that she would “never be in the top of her class”.

 

We knew Selah had hydrocephalus, that she had a VP shunt placed one week after she was born because she had 3 pounds of fluid in her skull.  The doctors waited a full week after Selah’s birth to place that shunt, believing she wouldn’t survive but a few days—after all, she wasn’t even supposed to be born alive.

 

We’d been told that Selah was born with just a sliver of a brain and that she had ACC—Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum.  This meant she was missing the section of her brain that connects the right and left hemispheres.

 

Yet we were only recently told that Selah doesn’t have right and left hemispheres of her brain, that she was born with holoprosencephaly.  We weren’t told what ‘holoprosencephaly’ meant exactly, but thanks to Dr. Google, we now understand better.

 

We were also recently told that Selah has Chiari II malformation and numerous brain calcifications due to insults to her brain that occurred in utero.  She also has an official label of epilepsy, yet she’s been off her seizure meds for a year now, and she’s never had a seizure since her first month of life in the NICU, before we even knew of her existence.

 

How can this be?  If you google Selah’s diagnoses, you’ll discover that she seriously shouldn’t be alive.  According to Dr. Google, as well as all of the specialists who care for Selah, this precious girl really shouldn’t have been born alive. 

 

In fact, we’re not sure if there’s any other living child in the world with Selah’s diagnoses.  According to research, these ‘fetuses’ are aborted due to medical reasons/advice from doctors, or in extreme circumstances (where the birth mother refused abortion or the ‘fetus’ went undiagnosed with holoprosencephaly) they’re born dead due to natural causes caused in the brain by holoprosencephaly.

 

But Selah.

 

Oh sweet Selah, whose name in Hebrew means to ‘stop and listen, to pause’.  Some scholars claim that selah means literally ‘so every ear can hear and every eye can see’.  God just told us to give this precious baby the name “Selah”.  We did not know His plan, nor His testimony for our beloved Selah.  We realize now that she is truly a living testimony of God’s miracles, a life to pause and reflect upon, a life that every eye should see and every ear should hear.

 

My prayer is that every doctor who encourages an abortion will “stop and listen—pause’’ and think of our Selah’s testimony before they take human life into their own hands.

 

My prayer is that every birth mother who is encouraged to abort her ‘damaged fetus’ will HEAR and SEE Selah’s testimony and KNOW that our God is capable of so much more than any medical professional can predict or determine.

 

My prayer is that indeed EVERY ear will hear and EVERY eye will see what our God is capable of.  However, if we take life and death into our own hands, we are limiting our ability to SEE and HEAR God.  We are telling God that we do not trust in His sovereignty, we aren’t willing to fully submit to Him, we don’t want to believe that His will is better than our own desire.

 

Not every story ends—or begins--like Selah’s, we know this first-hand.  We had another miracle girl whose story ended differently than we prayed, whose life on earth ended sooner than we wanted.  But, through it all, God has proven Himself faithful time and time again.  Even when God’s will looks different than our own desire, He knows best.  He never makes mistakes.  Ever. 

 

When we let go of our will and wholeheartedly trust in God’s, regardless of the outcome, we begin to grow into the person He created us to be, submissive, trusting in Him and His sovereignty, relying fully on the One and Only Author and Creator of life.  We give God a chance to fully shine His glory in dark places.

 

Our character is shaped greatly by Him and the things He allows us to walk through.  It is a gift to walk through life, and death, with specials needs children.  There are things He teaches us through these experiences that cannot be learned any other way.  Our hearts are forever changed, looking much more like His than we could ever imagine, because that is His plan for us.  Our Father gave up His One and Only Son in order that we might have eternal life.  Jesus suffered greatly on this earth, far more than any of us could ever fathom, far more than most “damaged fetuses” could ever suffer, even if they’re given a chance to survive on this earth.  It is in our sufferings that we become more like Him, for this was largely a part of His life—and His death.

 

God’s Word reminds us that those willing to give up our lives for Him will have our lives saved, those willing to die to self will gain far more than this world has to offer.  I encourage you to die to the world’s definition of “life” and choose to believe wholeheartedly in His definition of life—ALL are precious in His sight.  Give Him a chance to prove that to you.  Do not walk away from the life He has planned for you.  Do not kill a baby because the world says he/she will suffer.  Do not listen to anyone but God, for His way is always best, regardless of our fears, regardless of our desires, regardless of what we feel is best.  Trust in His sovereignty, even when it looks different than you imagine.  He never makes mistakes.  Ever.

 

Happy 2nd Birthday, Selah

Dearest Selah,

 

I don’t even know where to start, as words cannot possibly portray how in awe of you I am.  I’ve used the term “miracle girl” loosely, but now I think I understand just how much of a miracle you are.  Your diagnoses of holoprosencephaly, agenesis of the corpus callosum, Chiari II malformation, brain calcifications (due to multiple brain insults), and hydrocephalus gave you a death sentence, but Jesus redeemed your life and God continues to display His miracles in you for His glory.

 

For a little girl who should have never been born alive, you are shocking the medical community.  To your Jesus-loving friends and family, we are not shocked by what God is doing, but we do stand in awe.  You bring God glory every second that you breathe.  We don’t care about how much or how little you can do, the way the doctors seem to focus, but we rejoice with every milestone you meet and praise our Father for displaying miracle after miracle after miracle in your life.

With every word you say, every song you sing, every animal you identify, every sound you replicate, every number you count, every jump you make, every step you climb, every horse you ride, every person (and animal) you call by name, every smile you share, and every hug you give, God is glorified, miracle girl.

 

You are a beautiful and unexpected blessing, treasured beyond words, Selah Karis.  We pray you have a blessed 2nd birthday, and we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you here on earth, as we believe God has abundant plans for your future, sweet girl.  We love you, our rough and tough, puddle-splashing, dirt-digging, ball throwing, chocolate-loving, tomboy-cowgirl.  We praise God for sharing you with us—what a gift you are!