2009 leaves the scars...

8:30pm
It was such a treat to be able to spend this special Christmas time with the closest family. We would still love to have our parents and siblings with us, but having Abi at home to celebrate the holidays was like a dream come true.


We continue to stop and look at Abi in amazement. Wow, I can't believe she's here with us, already, after the surgery. It will probably take a few more of those moments before we get used to this fact. The only thing that I don't want to do, is to forget about what happened, how God showed His peace, healing power and confirmation of His love to us. I want Abi's story to touch and encourage more people as she continues to grow. The surgery was just the beginning...


The last couple of days of 2009 we are practically brushing up on the daily and night routines, keeping a close eye on Abi's breathing and eating patterns, behavior and the healing scar... 
I pealed off the last 2 bandages on her 8 cm (3.14 in) incision!!
The scar looks great! Almost as pale as her skin. 
I am truly impressed with the look. Just take a look:

This scar...is why she's here and destined to live a very long life...
This scar...is her testimony of God's new Heart for her...  
This scar...tells a story of one brave and strong little girl.. 
If she was able to go through this in a blink of an eye, there is nothing she would not be capable of doing! 

No matter how big and how visible the scar will be when Abi grows up, I hope she will feel proud of it! I will make sure she feels confident about it and will want to wear whatever she likes. 

There were so many times I would think how unfair God was to allow her heart to be so complicated, imperfect and abnormal like that.. I could not in the whole world understand WHY!!!?? He would want such a thing to happen to a baby! 
This year has been filled with a mixture of so many emotions and feelings like joy when we first found out about Abi through fear, disappointment, anger, unforgiveness, helplessness, frustration, envy, sadness to peace, hope and blessed at the end... 


2009 is definitely classified as the most challenging, emotionally draining, exhausting yet educational year of my life. 
It seems like Abi is not the only one with the scar on her heart. We all have one in ours as we went through the healing process with Abi.


J.

Living in peace

10.50am

We got emails from some of you asking what’s going on with the lack of posts since last Thursday. Oh boy, I can’t believe it’s been so long since we posted here. We apologize all of you who check the blog daily or almost daily (and we know there are hundreds of visits a day for what we are very thankful!).

The wonderful Christmas time has just been crazy for us. Crazy in a very positive way. We had visitors almost every day – wonderful! We love you all and we love to have you over!!!! When only we could (definition of ‘when only we could’ is when Abi was taking a nap) we tried to catch up on sleeping as well.

Seems like it is not for us to sleep at night ;-) Two nights ago Asia and I talked about it and tried to come up with possible reasons why Abi was up exactly every 2 hours. It is funny because once we heard her ‘call’ us I told Asia what time it was without even looking at the clock and I was right to the minute. Incredible!!! So we talked about it and we came up with the following list: 1) it’s habitual. No reason for it and not really hungry [but still eating]. 2) Growth spurt (with the amounts she’s eating overnight she must be catching up on the past 5 months growth spurts as well). 3) She’s just messing with us and doesn’t want us to get any sleep.

Other than that she’s still doing wonderful. So far she has not developed any of the possible complications, and even though theoretically she can still develop them we pray she won’t and we know our God is crazy about her and if He has a fridge in heaven her picture is on it, so we have peace about her future. Yes, we live in peace every day. It’s incredible because it is not easy and when we look at things from our, human perspective, it’s very easy to be bumped and depressed, but He’s been good to us for so many years and even now is pouring His peace and love upon us daily! That’s really cool! I’m telling you all who haven’t tasted it yet! Just try!

I’m back to work today, but Asia is staying home for the next couple days/weeks which is great! It is so good to have them both around!

Have a wonderful day!

Art