Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Thankfulness

I fought back tears as the grateful mother told her tale of thankfulness to God. She has five children and her husband was injured in a construction accident. He can no longer work construction or lift heavy weights. The barrangay captain introduced them to a man that needed someone to care for his animals and they accepted and moved into the caretakers quarters: a bamboo hut with a grass thatched roof on the side of the river and next to the trash dump. Their pay is about $12 a week and she happily said they could live on that. "What would we do if we didn't have this? How would we survive? I think the barrangay captain (area leader) was an instrument of God leading us to this job."

That was enough to touch your heart, but that wasn't all. Their last child is loving 4 year old Down's syndrome boy. He loves Christian music and when they put in a praise song, he pretends to sing to it and sways back and forth. If his brother or sister try to play some worldly music, he covers his ears and pulls the plug on the radio...smart fella....He laid his head on my wife's lap as the mother shared of his last time in the hospital. They were not sure he was going to make it. The doctors told them his heart would grow bigger and bigger and he would have problems. He was struggling to breathe and the parents were praying. She told me her prayer was "Lord, if you take him, we are ready, but God you know how much we love him, so many parents have forsaken their children, take one of the children (to heaven by implication) that have no parents to love them, but Lord you know how much we love him..."

He started getting better and was released from the hospital.

Thank God for His kindness to us all!