Celebrating Daniel

Today is Daniel's 13th birthday (Happy Birthday Daniel!) and tomorrow is the 8 year anniversary of his adoption into our family! I can not believe that 10 years have passed since the Lord made him a part of us. We were so excited to have him home; he was skeptical that he would stay. We wanted to embrace him and hold him close; he wanted to stay at arm's length. We wanted to shower him with all that he did not have; he was overwhelmed.

As I think about our adoption of Daniel my heart goes out to his birthmom. She knew life would be difficult, but she chose life for our son. I am so thankful to her for that choice as our life would have been quite different without Daniel and we would have missed out on so much.

Daniel has opened our eyes to so many things. Without Daniel we may never have known the many facts we know about insects. We may never have looked at up close the intricacies of the many types of butterflies that inhabit our area. Because of Daniel we now know that a gecko can have the gout, that a bull frog tadpole can take a very long time to become a frog. He showed us how to scoop out dead goldfish from small bowls at my sister's wedding reception (don't try this at your reception). We now know how to clip the nails of a guinea pig. Daniel loves animals of all kinds and reads about them voraciously. He even reads the encyclopedia.

Daniel has shown us his tender side as he has reached out to younger children at our church. He loves on Nathan often and is an awesome big brother! He enjoys putting together Bionicles, Legos, and his stuffed animals. He loves to collect things he finds along his way, anything can be a treasure. In his room is my old iron that no longer worked, Daniel took it apart to see how it was put together.

Having Daniel as a part of our family has shown us how the Lord knits together a family perfectly. We have been refined, he has been refined, and hopefully the Lord has been glorified through it all. I will never forget the day, shortly after he came, that we put his picture on our fireplace mantle next to the other children. He walked over and said, "That's me!", for some time after that he would walk over and look and laugh at the picture. Such innocence and joy, it was the beginning of him realizing that he had a family he belonged with. We are praising the Lord for bringing Daniel into our family and we pray that we would follow the Lord as we love, instruct, and train him in His ways.

Happy 13th Birthday Daniel! We love you bunches!