Praise God!

A lot changes in the course of 6 months! Last May/June we were looking at the file of a little girl who was stealing our hearts with her smile. A little girl who we were told had serious hearing loss and serious developmental delays and possibly mental retardation. We prayed a lot. God is this the little girl you have chosen for us? God are you sure we can handle all of these medical/developmental problems? What if she is too broken, God? What if we don't love her the way you do? We can't see the future, God, but we can see all of the big and scary what if's, so what if? We can't see where this is going God!

Back to the verse with which we started this journey:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

We could not see the beauty and purity of spirit that we have come to find that our Lily possesses. We could not see the inner strength she carries in her thin and delicate frame. We could not see her determination or her boundless joy and enthusiasm for life. We had no assurance of healing for her delays and physical difficulties.

Yet we hoped and prayed for all of these things.

On Monday Lily went for her hearing test. Not only can she hear in both ears, and pretty well at that, her hearing will be dramatically improved with the simple procedure of having tubes placed to remove fluid build up in her middle ear - a common problem that so many children have. She does have considerable fluid build up, and has probably had that most of her life. Because of her age and how long she has had difficulties the doctor will also do a more advanced, thorough hearing test at the same time as her tube placement to pinpoint exactly what she hears and the quality of that hearing. At this point it looks like any hearing loss she will retain after the tube placement will be minimal!

Lily is daily growing in strength and in personality:-) To think that we could possibly have missed the beauty and wonder of this little girl is an unbearable thought! Thank you God for giving us the faith we needed to trust in your plan for us and for Lily.

Jennifer