|
We Are, Thankfully, Outliers!!!
by Anita Howell Thanking my God, my Savior, my Teacher, my Great Physician, my Healer, and my Counselor today that I AM AN OUTLIER. My husband is an outlier. My daughter is an outlier. And my son is an outlier. The world, without God's wisdom, has no other source of understanding short of things like statistics. And wouldn't you just know that God would show up and show off by creating outliers. People whose potential, for some inexplicable reason, exceed the world's estimated potential. Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. If I were to lean to the world's understanding, statistically speaking, I should be married to an abusive alcoholic. I've been married to my husband, a man who loves and supports me in my hopes and dreams, for 22 years I am an outlier. My husband should be a verbally abusive alcoholic. Even as a former Army Sergeant, our daughter always preferred his discipline to mine he is an outlier. Our daughter, who struggled with migraines for over a year, should have struggled with headaches the rest of her life. God lead us to a deficiency, the needle in a haystack, and now she has been headache free for more than two years she is an outlier. Most children with Cerebral Palsy as involved as Ryan's require a feeding tube. Yet, Ryan has never needed a feeding tube, never aspirated, and never had pneumonia he is an outlier. A doctor told us, "The glasses prescribed by the optometrist won't help." Two years later his vision continually improves and, though he is visually impaired, he is no longer considered legally blind outlier. Statistics are only good for one thing and that is to assist His kids in understanding, "But by the grace of God, there go I." Monday, before I came to this understanding, I was briefly distracted by a doctor's comment, "A child's chance of walking drops by 99% after the age of 7." His comment was very random and out of the blue so I had no response other than a blank stare. I suppose the awkward silence lead him to add, "Though there are outliers." I wonder if, in the silence, he suddenly recognized a King's Kid, an outlier, a child who might walk in one day and serve the good doctor a healthy dose of humble pie. Matthew 19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Ryan's neurologist is a Christian man who recognizes that his own limitations in treatments do not define a child's potential. He has always said, "I will never tell you what Ryan can't do but what we need to do to help him. Kids always prove us wrong. There is a little girl in the lobby whose mom was told she would never walk or talk. She is running around the waiting room chattering away right now. I just hope that I can get her to sit still and talk to me." -outlier. If you are a King's kid, you too ARE an outlier!!! Any other outlier stories to share? Anita has been married to Wes for 23 years and has two children; Emily, 17 and Ryan, 7. Her hope is to encourage others, particularly those with special needs children. Her blog focuses on her faith in Jesus Christ and advocating for those with disabilities. http://anita-whyibelieve.blogspot.com/ Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |