Every year, on this day, I take a little time to reflect back on the journey that God has brought us on from the day we found out that Maddy's sonogram showed "abnormalities". In Sunday school a couple of weeks ago, we talked about how when God led the Israelites out of Egypt, he led them into a place where it looked like hope was over. They were either going to have drown themselves in the sea or be slaughtered by the Egyptians. Four years ago, I think that we had much that same type of hopeless, no where to go feeling. We didn't know what to do, where to go, how we were going to cope with life, or what was the best thing to do for our baby girl. But, just as God started the Israelites journey with a "hopeless" scenario and then led them out from slavery in a totally unexpected and amazing way, he has done the same with the challenges in our lives. Sure, the journey has been challenging and hard at times, but we are in a much better place today than we were four years ago.
What has really stood out to me over the past year is that life now feels normal. We do lots of things on a daily basis, like therapy, and wearing AFOs and KAFOs, that aren't part of many "normal" familes' routines. Yet, this is just us. This is normal. It's just part of our routine. And through the grace of God, we do lot's of things that are "normal". Maddy goes to school two days a week, she likes eating peanut butter straight out of the jar when Mom isn't looking, she loves playing in the backyard in her sandbox and playing with her dogs, she likes tormenting the cat, swimming in her kiddie pool, visiting Daddy at his office, playing with her friends, and helping Mommy cook dinner.
When I look at Maddy, I see her personality and who she is. There are many times that I forget she even has a "disability". I've certainly long passed the stage where I go to the store and think, everyone is looking at us and wondering about Maddy's condition. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. It's often the last thing on my mind on a trip to Wal-Mart. I think about how I used to see people with disabilities and feel sorry for them and think that their lives just must be horrible. Perhaps the lives of those people were hard or challenging or difficult in many ways, but I doubt many of them would use the word horrible to describe their life. If I would have actually said that to them they might have looked at me like I was crazy. That's the way I'd look at someone today if they said that too me. Probably most of the people I saw were just enjoying their time out and about, just as any "normal" person would do.
There is a verse I often think of around Thanksgiving. "You have brought us into a place of abundance...". I am thankful for the abundance of joy, reward, and love that God has brought to us through Maddy.
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