You Are Special

"The stickers only stick if they matter to you.  The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers."

"I'm not sure I understand."

Eli smiled.  "You will, but it will take time.  You've got a lot of marks.  For now, just come to see me every day and let me remind you how much I care."

Eli lifted Punchinello off the bench and set him on the ground.

"Remember," Eli said as the Wemmick walked out the door, "you are special because I made you.  And I don't make mistakes."

Those words are from a very sweet book, You Are Special, given to us as a baby gift when Timothy was born.  When the book was given, the giver didn't realize that Timothy had a cleft lip.  A couple weeks later, after she met him, she came up and apologized, afraid that she had overstepped a boundary.  I told her I thought it was providential and that we loved the gift!

This month marks the 4th anniversary of Timothy's cleft surgery.  I found myself choked up more than once while reading You Are Special, especially as I read the last sentence.  I know my God is good.  I know my God doesn't make mistakes.  But as a parent of a child with a very obvious deformity, I did find myself questioning God's wisdom in giving Timothy a cleft lip, especially after the road we walked with Benjamin's deformity.  But even as I handed my three month old over for surgery, I knew there was a reason.  And I prayed this verse over my son, hoping that the Lord would be displayed in his life and in our walk.

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." John 9:3