Dwarfism Awareness ~ Little Football

When Brahm was a toddler I distinctly remember crying about how unfair it is that God gave our poor disabled boy a heart for sports (yeah we have come a long way.)

Now it's more of a matter of finding sports he can play without further damaging his joints.

Some children with dwarfism can play almost any sport

Some children with dwarfism are very limited on the types of sports they can play (most specifically those who had the neck surgery Fei did and those that have spinal issues.)

And then we have Brahm who suffers from joint pain

and because the round ends of bones are jagged 

we have to protect his joints. 

A break especially near the epiphysis could be detrimental.

So we find sports,

weigh his heart, mind and body

and give him a chance to try.

Mind you at 7 he only weighs 33 lbs LOL!

Anyhow, flag football was our newest try

AND he loved it!!

He actually did great on defense ~ mainly because his mind was so amazing and he gets the game

and we had to laugh at him trying to block etc.

And our Tao - well he is another sport kid.

One of my all time favorite pics - he is trying to get Fei to hold the ball

think Chuck and Lucy from the peanuts LOL!

In awe of my son!

If you have been reading this blog then you'll remember my post here.

Well, I was mistaken in the fact that they were cutting kids at all.  Instead every Tues morning they post a list of the 25 kids that will play the following Weds game.  I originally thought perfect, all 50 boys will get playtime, as well as keeping their confidence and learning the love the game.

You guessed it - this sweet guy

DID NOT MAKE IT!  Not last week and NOT this week!

I was so upset for him.  I know for a fact that some of the other mom's have emailed the coaches and now their kids are playing.  SOOO. . . you guessed it, this mom was all ready to email the coaches.  Let them know how distructive I thought these games of rejection were to a child's psychie blah, blah, blah.

THEN this amazing young man -

taught this old momma a few lessons.

He said "Mom, I don't want a position cuz I complained, I want a position that I earned!"

"I'll ask the coaches at our next practice to see what I need to work on."

When I reminded him of a "friend" from preschool who would harass him tomorrow for not playing and that he didn't need to go to the game.  

He looked in me in the eye and said, "Mom, I am going to cheer on my school, I can handle him, he is all talk."

Alright then, my heart went from breaking for him, to so absolutely impressed with 12 year old.

And for his true friends - they were all really surprised that he didn't make the team last week and even more so this week.

Pretty amazing group of kids and I am so absolutely thrilled I get to stand to the side and watch these amazing boys become men!

Encouragement and prayers

The one definate blessing of this adoption journey is that our walk with God has been front and center.  It actually is very surreal and a true blessing.  This morning - after a long painful night for little man - I decided I need some time to jsut be in the word.  I didn't have a plan, or a thought, I jsut picked up my husband's open bible and it was open to a page description about Barnabas which was placed between Acts 13:12 & Acts 13:13.

Now let me tell you that I don't know much about Barnabas but I jsut knew that this was the page I needed to read today.  Barnabas was an encourager and brought many people to Christ through his encouragement and being a Godly man.  It said that "Barnabas was rarely in a situation where there isn't someone we can encourage.  Our tendency, however, is to criticize instead. "

Lessons learned from his life:
    Encouragement is one of the most effective ways to help
    Sooner or later, true obedience to God will involve risk
    There is always someone who needs encouragement

WOW!!

Then I opened up to a different page (ok I kind of cheated as I LOVE psalms and my fingers know where they are in the bible.)  BUT I opened up to Psalm 100 - called a psalm for giving thanks.  I think of Thanksgiving as turkeys of family.

 A Psalm for ^[a]Thanksgiving.
 ¹ Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. ² Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing. ³ Know that the LORD ^[b]Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and ^[c]not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
 ⁴ Enter His gates with ^[d]thanksgiving And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name. ⁵ For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations.

Reading this Psalm I realized that the end when I can wrap my arms around our sweet children is not the only time to be thankful.  I need to be thankful for the delays, for the heartache and for this journey.  For the amazing people I have met on this journey.  Yes, I still can't wait until the end, but even then it will only be the beginning.


Sorry this is so long!

I wondered why Barnabas was brought to me today.  Then it dawned on me that all the unrest in my heart could be easily solved by asking you to help pray for my big boy.  

This sweet boy is in the midst of tryouts for football.  He has a group of friends that all have the nicest most Godly spirits.  They are all also phenomenal athletes.  As 7th graders they must tryout and either get on the travel team or intramurals.  He so wants to play with his buddies, and I am sure a lot of my turmoil comes from my own days of not making teams and friends.  Our big boy is not as natural of an athlete as his friends, but he is finding his way.   This mothers heart also hurts knowing that because of little man's health issues, our big boy missed the first few years his friends played football together.

Did I mention that he has the best heart!  So please can you pray that either he makes the team with his friends or that I have the words of encouragement to help him through this journey.