Jared Turns 10!!!

 I know I always start out every birthday post by saying the same thing, but it's the truth, so here goes again.  I can't BELIEVE that Jared is TEN years old!!!  It truly seems like yesterday that I got the phone call that there was a little 3 month old baby in the hospital at UK who needed a foster placement and would we please consider fostering him?  "Oh," the social worker on the other end of the line said, "there are some things you need to be aware of.  This baby is brain damaged, leaving him deaf, blind, and without a suck reflex.  He may not even make it, but they are releasing him from the hospital because there is nothing more they can do for him."  That was true. 

 Indeed, there WAS nothing more THEY could do.  But God?  Yes, BUT GOD!  Wow!  He had a hope and a future in mind for this seemingly broken little boy.  The very night he came home, he jerked out his NG tube and began sucking from his bottle.  A few weeks later he was visually tracking us as we walked around the room.  And one Sunday morning, miracle of miracles, he STARTLED when Harold made a loud noise!  HE COULD HEAR!  I remember Harold and I both crying with the joy of it. 

 Yes, this young man has defied the odds.  He tells his Sunday School friends how God made him see and hear again.  And he knows that his friend, Dustin, was baptized "because he loves Jesus."  This understanding is a far cry from the little baby who "may not make it."  A far cry from the little boy who the neurologist gravely proclaimed would never speak or understand. 

 I am so grateful for that phone call nearly 10 years ago.  I can't imagine how much quieter this house might be without my sweet boy hollering at me every few minutes making his "friendly" demands and asking his million questions all for the millionth time.  What a privilege it has been to witness first-hand as God has worked so many miracles in Jared's life!  What a sacred privilege it has been to be his mommy.