Thursday, June 14, 2007

6 Years Ago

6 years ago this week God rocked our world. Today is Andrew's birthday and his birth marks a monumental shift for our family. I guess the birth of any child can rock your world, Abigail was born after years of trying and the name Abigail Grace is the combination meaning Father's Joy + Unmerited Favor from God; However Andrew's was different. "Andrew" means warrior, and from the moment of his birth he was a fighter. One of the things I love about my son is that he is a tough kid. Yes he can be whiny sometimes, but he really is a man's man. He and I love to do tough stuff together and I can account that he can give and take a punch. We sat up last night and watched UFC and he told me he wants to grow up to be a police man. He tried to describe a story he heard of a kid who saved everybody from a bad guy on a plane, it was not 9/11 because he said the bad guy wanted them to take him somewhere. But he has a desire to grow up and use his strength to be heroic. I guess there is some of that in all of us. His first battle was for life, as he took his first breath while in the birth canal. As a result he had a hole in his left lung causing it to collapse. The typical birth scenario being altered when suddenly the room is full of Doctors. I still don't remember them being called. In a moment's time the room was full, then they took him away. In the NICU he stood out from the Preemies by his size, but we were only allowed to see him every few hours. I remember that I was reading the prayer of Jabez book at the time. A prayer for God to expand our border meant that we were asking Him to increase our faith. Andrew's difficulties increased our faith a great deal, and one of the results of that is Cornerstone. There is much more to the story, but it will have to wait for a better time. Today, I am going to train my warrior for his biggest opponent in life, himself.