Kieran update and Behind the Story (BTS) 6.1

First of all, an update on Kieran’s medical issues, in case you don’t make it to the end of this long post.  🙂

It turns out that along with the severe lack of Vitamin D Kieran received as a child (no sunlight for a year or two and no dairy his entire life), he also has a genetic disorder called Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).  However, his particular strand of OI has actually not been seen before.

We are so grateful for the doctors we have seen so far, and are especially amazed to see how God’s hand is at work even in the next step.  Kieran and I (Suzanne) will be headed to St. Louis early Monday morning, Feb 4, to stay at the Shriner’s Hospital for Children for a week of testing and hopefully some answers as to what we do next.  We will be there till Friday, Feb 8, seeing some of the best doctors in the world for this particular medical issue.  (We are so grateful those doctors are only 2 hours away!)  I had pursued Shriners early on before we brought Kieran home, but I felt the person I talked to had not given me much hope, so I dismissed the idea.  However, God sent someone I barely knew at church to come to my door with a Shriners application, so how could I say no!

Thank you, Lord, for repeatedly filling in the gaps where I would otherwise miss them altogether.

Satan apparently tried doubly hard to keep Kieran’s God-given purpose in life at bay, but I believe God will redeem it all and still use it for His glory.  We are doing all we can to help him navigate this life and listen for God’s direction.  Will you pray with us?

Secondly, people have repeatedly asked to hear more of the story about how God led us to Kieran.  In my post last May announcing Gowin Kid #6, I mentioned that during the month of March/April preceding Easter, God revealed to me multiple times that Kieran was supposed to be our son.  I couldn’t share those revelations at the time because they were so specific to him and we were not supposed to post any details about children from the orphanage until we had passed court and they were legally ours.  Here is one of the ways God led me to Kieran.

It was a Tuesday in March 2012 that I first saw Kieran (his anonymous name on our agency’s Waiting Child List was “Sage”).  He was older so he did fit the part I already knew about our future son, that he would be older and by himself (no siblings, at least to be adopted with him) and about to age out of the system.  But my honest first reaction when I saw his disabilities (that he walked with crutches along with other medical conditions) was that this would be too difficult for us, already knowing that adding number six would be a challenge, spatially and financially.  I tried to dismiss him from my mind, but within 24 hours, God had helped me open my heart, and he was all I could think about.

Then the following Friday, I came home from spending the day at a mom’s conference (Hearts at Home), and I grabbed a movie for the kids to watch for family movie night, about an orphan named Hugo.  When I got home, I saw that Michael was exhausted from watching the kids all day, so I suggested he go take some quiet time instead of joining us for the movie.

(Spoiler alert!)  The movie is about an orphan, living on his own, trying desperately to make an old robot work (that he and his late father had worked on together), so that he could get what he thought was a message from his father.  There is also a lawgiver, once an orphan himself, who is inhibited by a leg brace and is hunting the orphan down to put him in an orphanage (reminded me of Javert in”Les Mis”).  He also reminded me of the roommate of the main character in “Meet the Robinsons,” a boy who never got adopted and turned into the bad guy in the movie because of his sadness and resentment.  The third main character is an older man who is hiding a secret that could unlock everything, but he is also hurting.  Here is the scene at the end of the movie that hit me so hard:

Hugo is risking everything to try to bring the robot to the old man, and he and the robot are barely saved from being run over by a train, but then the policeman catches him.

(Police): “Are you injured? Come on! We’ll let the orphanage deal with you!”

(Hugo): “No! I don’t belong there!”

(P): “Where do you belong? A child has to belong somewhere.”

(H): “Listen to me! Please, you have to listen to me! I don’t understand why my father died, why I’m alone. This is my only chance … to work. (pleading) You should understand (looking at the policeman’s leg).

(Old man shows up): “I do! I do! Monsieur, this child belongs to ME!”

(Policeman reluctantly lets go of boy)

(Hugo runs to Old Man with his robot): “I’m sorry. He’s broken.”

(OM): “No, he’s not! He worked perfectly!”

It is this amazing triangle of grace!  The old man saves the orphan after the orphan risks his life to bring the robot to the old man to save his life.  Because the policeman sees this grace from both of them, he is able to finally let go of the revenge and bitterness he had harbored for so long.  Thus, the old man and Hugo save him, as he lets go of the orphan to allow him to go to the old man and be safe in a family.  Beautiful!

In this movie, it’s like Hugo and the policeman are the same person, just years apart.  They both desperately want a family to belong to.  They both desperately want to work, to have a purpose, to be complete.  Then when the old man says, “This child belongs to ME!” I knew to the very core of my being that “Sage” was supposed to be my son!

This was just one way in which God unexpectedly used a quirky little movie to show me His plans.  Since Michael did not watch the movie with us, and I had just recently vowed not to bring up adoption until after Lent was over, this was the first of many instances where I knew God was leading us specifically to adopt Kieran, but we didn’t get to discuss it till after Easter.

More posts to come about the revelations of that month (BTS 6.2 ….)