The Miracle of Michael

 

The first moment I met Michael my heart melted.  The difference between him and my other children is that I knew that he would not “be like our other children”.  Plain and simple fact, but what happened after adopting Michael is the real miracle.

We said “yes” to Michael after being told that most of his brain isn’t functioning.  That he has barely learned to crawl, can sit up (very slouched), he may never be able to eat normal food, he may never learn to walk, he may never know how to communicate, and this is a very short list of the "he may nevers". 

 

That can be more than intimidating.  That can be enough to make you run for the hills.  I mean what will he be able to do? 

This is where the miracle happened.  It didn’t matter! 

It didn’t matter what he couldn’t do at all.  The miracle is in how our hearts changed, believed in him, and in what we cheered him on to do.  It was a huge shift in thinking.  I mean we talked and prepared a lot for Michael to come home.  We talked about expectations with our other children and our families.  We shared the “he may nevers” with them.  We shared our thoughts and feelings about it.

 

When Michael came home none of that seemed to matter.  At first when the kids snuggled and loved Michael I was fully expecting that this would last for a while, but would they love him as he got older?  Would I love him as much as he gets older and isn’t a baby anymore?  Would our feelings change? 

Again, the miracle of Michael took over and changed our hearts to what can we encourage him to do now?  How can we help him to do his best?  Then we watched as he has grown and learned!  We watched in our own hearts how we didn’t shy away from a child that can’t do what other children his age can.  We watched at how our hearts still come back to a place of deep love and care for this young boy who loves in such a huge way.

 

He doesn’t care that he can’t run, but he is lightning fast crawling.  He doesn’t care that he can’t reply with full sentences, but he can tell you in an instant if he wants more, or if he is happy, or if he is upset which are all things he has learned.  He doesn’t care that he may not be able to understand everything you say, but you can bet he understands a lot more than you know.  Proven true by his ability to follow commands and sentences spoken when we didn’t think “he knew”. 

The number of times he has blessed us is immeasurable.  The number of times we have cheered him on thinking we were encouraging him, and yet our hearts were the ones encouraged!   The number of times we have felt down about what we are going through that Michael simply doesn’t seem to care about.  In his mind you are amazing every single day.  When you feel at your lowest Michael seems to remind you of who you really are in Christ.  That is the true miracle of Michael.