God's Love... a Member of the Redeemed!

 

God's Love...God's love is His strong affection He has for us as His creation. God's love is like the father welcoming back the lost son while at the same time putting his arm around the older brother and demonstrating graciousness and sincere love for His older son. It is God's unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern that He grants us.

We were able to go home 42 days after Matthew birth. We went home with an antibiotic pump and an Nasal Feeding tube. It was October 31^st of 2003 and in that year it was a Friday. On Monday, we received the hospital bill for over $473,000. We had no idea how we were going to pay that bill. On Tuesday we received a letter from our insurance company informing us that we had an clause in our insurance that if we were transferred from a participating provider to an non participating provider, the company would cover everything as if it were the original hospital.

Instantly, I recollected my original prayer 45 days earlier... “God, just let us take him home” and God said, “no.” If we had left the hospital...the insurance would not have paid anything. The right answer was, “no.” God's love was willing to say, “no” so that God's love could draw us in to His story of the redeemed.

The insurance paid everything but our co-pays. We had a ten dollar copay for every doctor we saw and that bill was over $3000 in co-pays. The insurance paid the bills while church members and friends raised the funds to make up the co-pays. Every medical bill had been paid and cleared by the end of the month of November. We never asked for financial help...God just does what he does best and demonstrated the truth “everything belongs to the ones that are redeemed.”

Matthew is now nine years old and since his birth, God has continued to draw us into his story with four more children. Another biological child in our six year old girl that does not have down syndrome, but is very special in every typical way. We adopted Nicholas Mark, who had down syndrome and who died in our arms at two months old from complications from heart surgery. Nicholas is our treasure waiting for us in heaven. We have adopted Kendyll Andrey who has down syndrome and he is three years old. We have also adopted Nathan Israel who is a year old and he also has down syndrome.

I started these blog post last Monday with the following question in mind, “How can a person become a character in the story of the redeemed?” The answer is, “By spending time with Jesus and he will give you a story...not because of you, but because of who He is! And when you have been with Jesus and you have experienced God's intimacy, God's Concern, and God's Love, you can't help but tell your story as a member of the redeemed.

You know I love ya, Don