In Disguise

I love going out with Bradley looking like this.

Everyone asks.

On Monday we were at the park.

Maddy had found a friend.

The friend was asking Maddy about her siblings.

And Maddy came over to show her new friend her baby brother Bradley.

The friend stared for a bit.

Then she asked me "What is he?"

I said "What do you mean?"

She pointed to his helmet and asked again "What is he?"

She thought that we had for some reason dressed him up.

Like in a Halloween costume or a play dress up helmet.

I quietly chuckled to myself and told her this helmet was to fix his head.

She still looked puzzled and Maddy said "They think he has a medical syndrome."

I continued listening to see what Maddy would say.

"He has a g-tube too!"

Maddy opened his pj's.

Her new friend peered between the buttons and gasped.

The friend asked,

"Did it hurt when he got that?"

"It did." I told her, "but it doesn't hurt him anymore."

Then the girls turned and ran off to play together.

Getting that g-tube was one of the most painful things I have ever been through.

I will never forget the weekend before he got it and the feelings

I was having about the sad, broken baby, I had been given.

And when he came out of surgery and I came face to face with it.

And as my milk dried up.

But I still felt God around me.

And I knew that he had NOT left me to struggle alone.
And there were angels all around us both, at that time.

We were some how in a holy place, even through those struggles.

"We are not alone in our little prisons here.
When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives.
That knowledge can turn every such situation into a would-be temple.

Regarding our earthly journey, the Lord has promised, “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up”. That is an everlasting declaration of God’s love and care for us, including—and perhaps especially—in times of trouble."

Jeffery R. Holland