Weak Things Made Strong

"If we have the desire to play the game of life well, if we keep trying

 and practising, we have to endure to the end.

We have to be determined to overcome our faults and stay in

there trying to score regardless of the handicap.

In 1960 the Olympics were held in Melbourne, Australia.

 There on the winner’s platform stood a beautiful, tall, blond American girl.

She was being given a gold medal.

The boys whistled and said, ‘There’s a girl who has everything.’

“Tears ran down her cheeks as she took the medal.

 Most people thought she was just touched by the victory ceremony.

The thing most of the audience did not know was the story of her determination.

At the age of five she had polio.

When the disease left her body, she couldn’t use her arms or legs.

Her parents took her to a swimming pool where they hoped the water

would help her hold her arms up as she tried to learn to use them again.

When she could lift her arm out of the water with her own power, she cried for joy.

 Then her goal was to swim the width of the pool, then the length, then several lengths.

She kept on trying until she won the gold medal for the

butterfly stroke in the Olympics at Melbourne, Australia.

This is one of the most difficult of all strokes.

What if Shelley Mann had got discouraged? What if she had not learned [to endure]?”

(Norma Ashton, “Be a ‘Most Valuable Player,’” Improvement Era, Sept. 1965, p. 787).

What wonderful knowledge and help the gospel brings.

We are so lucky to have the standards we do.

How hard the last few months of my life would have been without a knowledge of eternity.

When I was a girl

I never thought I would EVER have a child like Bradley.

I never had EVER had bad health myself.

The only people I knew who died were Grandparents.

And then when we almost experienced the worst thing a Mother could go through,

my testimony was the first place I went.

I did not doubt.

I knew God loved me.

I still do.

He did not leave me to struggle alone in this world.

His arms have been around me through out this whole ordeal.

AND I AM SO LUCKY THAT SOMEONE TAUGHT ME TO RECOGNIZE THAT.

And I don't know what any ones future holds, but I know that the

gospel will make whatever is in each of our future's easier.

I cannot sing a sacrament hymn without remembering those days in the NICU

when I felt alone, and sad.

And then feeling the whispering's of the spirit comforting me.

Telling me that it was okay.

And I would never, EVER trade the last few months for any other temporal challenge.

I REALLY DO FEEL BLESSED TO HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS!

And I consider myself lucky!

Lucky to have THESE challenges.

Someone told me that I would start to love this challenge and I really am starting to love it :)
I REALLY AM!

The Boy Who Almost Wasn't

Today Bradley saw his Gastro.

While we waited there was a girl who was in a special wheel chair.

She looked like she had cerebralpalsy.

Her mother was talking to her.

The girl couldn't talk or walk.

She had a g-tube, a colostomy bag, and a tracheotomy, from what I could tell.

The mother looked exhausted and stressed.

I could sympathize.

I wanted to tell the mother that she was SO lucky to be given a special spirit.

But I was choking on my tears, so I couldn't.

I JUST KEPT THINKING ABOUT HOW LUCKY BRADLEY AND I WERE!

He has been through the wringer and you CANNOT tell.

The power of the priesthood, fasting and prayer is real!

And we have been blessed.

And I also know that it has been God's will that

Bradley AND the girl in the special chair are the way that they are.

The gastro ordered to repeat the swallow study.

I'm quite excited about it!



And

We talked about Bradley's only diagnosis being hypo parathyroid

AND

how Bradley's primary Pediatrician doesn't think Bradley has a genetic syndrome,

and
how he would know because he used to be a geneticist.

I told the gastro that Bradley's Ped has NEVER had a patient with a hypo parathyroid before.

Bradley's Gastro said he's never had one either; EVER!
That hypo parathyroid is something he learned about in medical school, but never something he's seen.

 I asked the gastro if WHEN the human body starts to shut down,
if it will start aspirating liquids.

He said it can.

I wanted to know if he thought that babies with
 hypoparathyroid were rare because the usually die.

He said, "YES, and it's probably blamed on SIDS"

I said "If we had been 12 hours later to the hospital Bradley would have died."

He said "Yes."

BRADLEY WAS IN ROUGH SHAPE WHEN HE WAS ADMITTED.

AND FOR TWO DAYS WE THOUGHT HE MIGHT.

I'm hoping that's the reason why he started aspirating.

I am not a doctor, but I'm hopeful that all of this is possible.

AND THE FACT THAT HE has LIVED
AND DOESN'T HAVE SEVERE DAMAGE FROM ANY OF THIS

is nothing short of a miracle.


P.S. I hope that the geneticist laughs at us and tells us to all go home when we DO see her.



P.P.S. A girl can hope, right?

P.P.P.S. With what we've lived through, anything is possible!

Sent to Excel

Before we decided to get pregnant for the fourth time,

we seriously talked about adoption.

We talked about it being a way that we could guarantee a brother for Jacob.

What silly plans I had.

We were very close to starting the process.

But I chickened out because it IS such a process!

And for us it was easier to just get pregnant.

And I knew that Jacob would get his brother either way.

Wether we made his body or someone else made his body. 

And I remember telling a close friend that this next child was meant to be in our lives.

And then when we were in the NICU on a sybling visit day,

there was a woman and two girls who had come to see their brother.

It was a Sunday and they had just come from church.

And I could tell they were LDS too.

She told the social worker that they didn't know the babies last name
but they were here to meet the brother they were hoping to adopt.

AND I KNEW

then and there
BRADLEY WOULD HAVE
 come to us naturally or through adoption.

And that this was the body he was supposed to get.

 Even if it wasn't a body that I normally made.

Lately my Young Women have been learning the following song for Young Women's in Excellence.

"Sent to Excel"

 by Christy Riches Hinkson

Sent to excel.

I am a part of Father's Plan.

I'm here to do the things that I am finding out I can.

Sent to excel.

I'm getting better every day.

 I'm here to learn and grow and follow those who show the way.

I wasn't sent, to stay the same.

To be my best is why I came.

And so I search, and soon I see, the excellence inside of me.

Sent to excel.

With a desire to be much more.

I feel unsettled with, what I have settled for before.

Sent to excel.

I feel a striving from within.

Pulling me upward.

Whispering that I was born to win.

I wasn't sent, to stay the same.

To be my best is why I came.

And so I search, and soon I see, the excellence inside of me.

Sent to excel.

I'm getting better everyday.

Sent to excel.

Sent to excel.

I've been thinking about my mission here on the earth.

If Bradley never has a normal brain and

is therefore not tested in this life,
I know it will guarantee his salvation.

And he will be YET ANOTHER reason for me to WANT to make it.

I will want to be with him and so I will want to live my life accordingly.

 Heavenly Father wanted to give me another reason to comeback to him,

and so he sent me Bradley.

And because of Bradley I WILL excel.