We Are Not Fragile

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

I was driving home with my littlest peanut from speech therapy Friday afternoon.  It was just she and I, along with our amazing speech therapist, at the session.  Our speech therapist is practically a part of our family as she has been working with Jillian the last two and a half years since we have moved here.  I am so thankful for her.  Since our speech therapist is so incredible, Miss Molly and I have started seeing her too.  Molly's speech and language development was significantly behind her peers as she couldn't hear anything we were saying until about four months ago when she got her first set of hearing aids.  Since beginning to hear though our girl's language has taken off.  She has made nearly a year's growth in the last four months which in itself is incredible, but when you throw in the fact that she has only heard English for a bit less than a year, it is is down right impossible that she is making such great strides.  She is bright our girl.  She is creative.  Inventive. Amazing.  Honestly, her potential to change this world for the better is limitless!  This week, she even started labeling objects with color words.  I suspected she had learned them, and so I set up a few test scenarios for her.  Well, she does indeed know her colors!  Anyway, I thought about how her special needs have really been a nonissue.  I recounted the first conversation I had about her in my head with the worker assigned to her file by the agency.  I thought about the feelings I had when I found out that so many families had asked for her file as I was sure she was meant to come home to us.  There were many, many families "in front" of us looking at our daughter's paperwork.  Her special need, and saying yes to her, was risky.  Radial Dysplasia can be associated with a lot of scary stuff, but oh how I am thankful that we didn't let fear rob us of the pleasure of knowing this baby girl and calling her our daughter.  She is such a joy!  She is an amazing, wonderful little babe who is bright, capable, and remarkable!  I recently talked with a friend about a podcast she listened to that challenged Christians to stop thinking we are so fragile.  I thought that fear must have kept all those other families from saying yes and moving forward with bringing our babe home.  (I am so thankful it did as she is now mine.) Mostly though, I thought about all the things that fear has kept me from doing.  I am certain that I have missed out on much as I haven't said yes to things God has called me to do as I have been paralyzed with fear.  How I long to live in a place in my life where I run to the truth of God's word.  We are not given a spirit of fear, but one of power!  We are not fragile!  In the coming months as life is settling in to a peaceful ebb and flow here, I am praying that I will not be paralyzed by fear, but I will live each day ready to say yes to the next thing God shows me to do even though it is CRAZY.