Our Miracles

I have a very dear friend, someone I've known nearly my entire life. For a time, our lives grew in different directions, but with the births of our children we have become, in many ways, closer than ever. You see, she's a member of the Special Mommy Club. Her child, J, has special needs. And although J's needs are very much different that DD's, we are sisters of the same family.

The last time I talked to her, the topic of faith and churches came up. It was a pivotal moment for me.

My dear friend spoke of how she and her husband have lost their faith and consider themselves atheists now. She talked about how God had not answered their prayers and had not given them their miracle. J had a multiple organ transplant a few months ago. It was "supposed" to have been their miracle. But instead, J is just as sick has he was before surgery.

It has been several years (well since DD's birth) since we belonged to a church, but in our hearts our faith is stronger than ever. It has been logistics actually keeping us home on Sunday mornings--the effort involved in getting DD, her wheelchair, feeding supplies, oxygen, meds, and various monitors ready and loaded in time for the service to start, not to mention the risk in waking the sleeping (seizure prone) baby. Interestingly, my dear friend incorrectly interpreted our lack of church attendance as our being angry with God at letting our child have such a difficult life.

It was at that moment that I realized how much differently I perceive DD's life. DH and I believe that we have already gotten our miracle. Our miracle arrived the day DD was born, and the next day when she came of the ventilator, and the next week when she first took a bottle, and the next month when she came home to us, and the next year when an amazing doctor gave her the chance to live without seizures.

We're not waiting for our miracle. We've gotten our miracle. Everyday that we have DD in our lives IS A MIRACLE!