Tell me more (about SB) Mondays.
Let’s lay down the basics about Spina Bifida for those of you who are unfamiliar with it. SB is a defect in the spine that occurs before a mom may even know she’s pregnant!
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Now think of people who have broken their backs or their necks. If the break was low on the spine, only the lowest part of the lower limbs is affected. The higher up on the spine the break is, the more damage is done to the extreme of someone ending up as a quadriplegic. So just because you “know somebody with SB” – that doesn’t mean you know everyone with SB. They are all different with different personalities and abilities. Just like any other person. Duh!
We had Amanda with us all day on Sunday. Short story is that she has not been sleeping well lately and it is affecting her health. (details for another time) So she looks a little ragged and she was pretty tired, too. (Plus she needs a haircut – she keeps reminding me – and we’ll have to find time for that too!) But I thought I’d share the photos I kept snapping of her asleep at the kitchen table. That’s Amanda!
She finally perked up when Ted asked her to help him bottle some wine we were making today. She thought she was something else bottling wine! She filled the bottles then helped load the gadget that puts the cork in the bottle. She was quite the corker 🙂
In the end she wanted pancakes for dinner! By the way – notice her dvd of Frozen? Her new fave!
So Amanda likes purple (notice her shirt), she likes Frozen, she likes helping her dad, and she likes when mom makes her pancakes.
I could tell you a whole bunch more. And I could tell you lots of funny stories. And I could tell you the things that upset me about her and SB. But I guess we all have kids … And kids with quirks … and stories to tell.
So Amanda is just my kid … and a kid who is her own person … like any other … except that SB dealt her a challenging hand. The best thing I’ve seen in regards to being dealt this thing called SB? There is a Facebook page called Take That Spina Bifida! … or TTSB! Love it! It’s a closed group but you can ask to join. But I love this group because they celebrate all the things that SB kids and people CAN do!
So here’s to celebrating the uniqueness in everyone! Since we were all created on purpose and for a purpose then we’ll just do the best we can. (And we just may try and kick SB in the pants every once in a while.)
Just Laurel
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 12:12-25 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.
Lois Greshel says
I was struck as read today s message the challenges You & Ted met careing for Amanda. Your message today was such an example of how the most difficult things in life give us the experience of reaching others with His love.