Making an Active Commitment to Our Kids
September 16th, 2009Summer has been a refreshing time for me. Ed and I spent some of our vacation time in the interesting Yellowstone and National Glacier Parks. The rest of the summer spent with our kids and extended family also have been fun and relaxing.
Now everyone is back at work or school. It’s often a challenge to spend quality time with our kids and grandkids in September. All the new programs are competing in our lives. But now is just as important a time to connect with our kids.
A most necessary way to be there for our kids is to make an active commitment to be involved with them. By doing this we can encourage them to become the best they can be, starting with a deep relationship with God, the foundation of our kids’ lives.
First we need to get to know our children personally: their desires, needs, goals, hopes and fears. We meet them where they are. Build them up where they are weak, praise them in their strengths, and get involved in developing them further. It will take sacrifice on our part - a sacrifice of time, of energy and even money.
I observed this method to be very effective in a family close to me this summer. Although it culminated a few weeks ago these special parents began their journey of commitment to their special young son a couple of years ago.
These special parents are Andrew and Marie, my great nephew and his wife. Yes, I do have second and even third generation nephews and nieces and it certainly is not because I’m an old auntie. I’m twelfth in a family of 14 siblings. I already became an auntie at the young age of 1. These are just the blessings of being part of a huge family.
So my great nephew, Andrew, and his wife Marie are the most true to life example I’ve ever known in being there for their child and making an active commitment to him. This young couple lives in Abbotsford and Andrew is a youth pastor in one of the churches there. In February 2007 they had their first baby. They named him Josiah. Josiah was born not breathing so he was rushed to Vancouver children’s hospital. After a week he was diagnosed with a very rare disorder, Pallister Hall Syndrome. Only 100 cases have ever been studied in the whole world.
Pallister-Hall is a mid-line disorder and in Josiah’s case a ’sporadic genetic mutation’, so all his problems ‘ran down the middle’ of his body. He had a malformed airway and spine, his kidneys joined in the middle, his brain was under developed, he had 6 beautiful toes on each foot, and he had an offset slightly turned around heart.
Josiah had a trachea to help him breathe and later was vented although he breathed on his own. He needed the vent to blow pressure into his airway to keep it from collapsing. He had a g-tube for food for the first year but later was able to eat on his own.
Andrew and Marie had to wait months to take Josiah home. Marie stayed in the Children’s hospital with him day and night. Andrew was there a lot too. The nurses trained Marie and Andrew to take care of Josiah with all of his hookups including a ventilator. After 16 months he was finally stable enough to go home.
They moved into a bigger condo, bought a bigger specialized van and hired a nurse to come in for nights so they could get a good nights rest. Josiah had to be monitored 24 hours a day. Everything they did for Josiah they did out of a deep love for their son. I call that real commitment on Andrew and Marie’s part.
We were very saddened to read that a couple of weeks ago Josiah suffered cardiac arrest. God took him home to be with Him and I now imagine Josiah running the gold streets of heaven. You can read about this amazing little boy on his daddy’s blog at http://andyman-sdg.blogspot.com/ . You will have to scroll down to August 29th and previous postings.
Josiah was special needs and required a lot of care. Even if our children are healthy they still need unconditional love and a close relationship with us, their parents. Our affirmation of them, blessing them, will profoundly impact them forever.



