February 15th

On February 15th, 2010 Ezra made the journey from Awassa to Addis and spent his first day at the Gladney Foster Homes. It may seem like a strange day to commemorate but I believe it is a very significant day in Ezra's history. He was so tiny yet from the photos that we have of him on that day you can visibly see his fighting spirit. It looks like he is exercising those powerful lungs that he still likes to show off today! When we got our referral I remember being blown away by how much healthier he looked at 4 months old compared to 4 weeks old. He was still a small 4 month old but the differences were staggering. This morning I have been thinking a lot of the nannies that nursed him back to health. The time he spent with them was such a turning point in his life. Their love and care changed his health status from 'failure to thrive' to THRIVING. One of my long time friends is a pediatrician and we asked her to look over Ezra's medical history when we got our referral. I remember her telling me that one of the main reasons she went into pediatrics was because children are resilient. I think Ezra is resilient personified. When Damon and I were in Ethiopia, the Gladney in-country coordinator told us that he would occasionally take photos of Ezra to his original orphanage in Awassa and the workers there were shocked. Thinking about that always brings tears to my eyes. Such a miracle.

I went back and checked my blog to see what Damon and I were up to mid-February last year and I happened to be writing a lot about gratitude. We were working to raise money for shoes for kids in South Africa through our team at Common Threadz and I had shared my overwhelming sense of peace about our journey to adopt. How fitting. Today feels like an appropriate day to share some quotes on gratitude that I was focusing on last February.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. "

-Melodie Beattie

"For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson