Hi All,
I wanted to share some things that came as revelations this weekend with
regard to our son Kent.
The thing that hit me first and foremost was that regardless of our
chromosomes, life is precious and it is fragile. Something that I fear I
take way too much for granted. My husband and I and our oldest son watched
"Titanic" on video Saturday night. Mark and I had seen it at the theater
and Brett had expressed an interest, so we rented it. After it was over, I
found myself to be very emotional. Gee, I wonder why? ;-) Aside from the
tragic love story I found myself pained at the loss of life. It was
especially difficult for me to watch the sinking scenes that involved
children. Hence the reminder of just how fragile life is. My emotions
then spilled over into a deep discussion with Mark about Kent. How
thankful we are for his life and that we have him as our son. Of course,
we are equally thankful for Brett and Richard, but Kent was the one we
primarily focused on during this discussion. We discussed our fears and
our hopes for his life. We laughed and we cried. It was wonderful.
Kent played his first soccer game of the season on Saturday morning and his
team did great. The majority of the players on this team are very good
athletes. Kent is not a great athlete. He tends to shy away from the ball
when it comes to him. Mark and I were pretty nervous about how he might
stick out in comparison to the other players. I recall a few instances
when Kent was playing defense and the ball got past the first defender and
it was only Kent and the goalie. I heard several people say "oh no!" when
the ball was coming to Kent and my heart sank. Kent didn't out and out
cause any real detriment to the team, they won 4-0. However, he really
didn't contribute to the winning effort. Now, I'm ashamed to admit it but I
told Mark that maybe we should tell the coach that we will understand if he
wants to have Kent sit out more than the other players. Mark did express
this to the coach after the game and the coach said, "No, Kent is doing
fine." Apparently the coach does not have the same attitude as some of
the other parents. Now, don't get me wrong, all of these parents seem like
really nice folks. I had sort of the same reaction as the "oh no" people
when the ball was coming to Kent because I wasn't too confident that he
would run up and kick it. One of the other parents told me that she
thought Kent did great. I sheepishly acknowledged the compliment and she
said "hey, at least he's out there". Saturday night, I felt terrible that
I allowed my concern over what other's MAY be thinking about my son, to
affect how I was viewing something that he loves to do.
Sunday evening at church we had a special time of communion and prayer. It
wasn't the traditional service of having communion served. We were to serve
ourselves and then take communion either with our own families or with other
people in a small group. We felt we were to share communion with a couple
who we have recently become good friends with and a few weeks back enjoyed a
weekend campout in their company. They have a three year old son (the same
age as our Richard) who they adopted. As we were praying together we
started to pray for each of our children. When our friend started to pray
for Kent she began to weep but not from a heart of sadness. She spoke of
how Kent had been used to minister to her. How blessed she was by his sweet
spirit. We all felt an incredible sense of awe at who Kent is and the
purpose of this life. Kent was not a part of the prayer time as he was
sound asleep. He usually falls asleep once the worship time is over. We
all went over to where Kent was sleeping and prayed over him. He didn't
even flinch. When we woke him up to leave the first thing he said was "Are
we going to Dairy Queen?" :-)
I share this with you all because I want I'm thankful for you. We share a
common bond and if not for that then I wouldn't have the pleasure of
communicating with you and learning more about you. I just wanted to share
my heart.
Laurie
