Me with my cute youngest daughter:

Our two boys in the backyard smiling for the camera:

Our little Emmaline with a bonnet too small and blanket covering her immobilized body:

Calissa in the baby tub, with her initials on display:

Calissa less happy, a few minutes later, with the men of her family:

For those of you who haven’t kept up with the latest events in Emmaline’s life, here’s a summary:

Almost eleven months ago, she was adopted into our family from an orphanage in China at the age of nine months.

Since then, it has been a roller coaster for both of us: she adjusting to our rambunctious home and having actual family who love her, and we adjusting to her “strange” behavior due to spending her first nine months in an orphanage.

Two months ago, she started walking and we first noticed her “waddling” gait. Her rear end jutted out and she had a slight bow-legged stance. At first we attributed it to learning to walk, but she never improved.

A month ago, we met with a physical therapist who advised we immediately see an orthopaedic surgeon to examine her bone structure. It turned out that both of her hips were dislocated and she required surgery!

Well, in just over a month, we not only met with a nearby surgeon, but we got referred to one of the country’s top pediatric orthopaedic surgeons, with thirty years of experience and division chief of pediatric orthopaedic surgery at one of the top pediatric hospitals in the country, just thirty minutes from our house. Emmaline has had several consultations and undergone two surgeries in the past two weeks to repair her two hip joints. All this in just over a month, when we initially thought we’d be lucky to even get an appointment to consult with a surgeon at this hospital in that timeframe.

Who would’ve guessed? Abandoned at two days old, living in an orphanage, there’s a good chance that Emmaline would’ve been a cripple if she’d never been adopted internationally. Yet here I sit next to her as she sleeps, recovering from a three-hour surgery this morning that properly put together her right hip joint.

Is there not much of God’s mercy to be seen in Emmie’s life?

Yet still more wonderfully, it strikes me that God’s mercy is not only clear in how He has provided for her. For in her life there is so great a parallel to the condition of lost sinners, to Christ’s saving work on their behalf, and God’s loving adoption of them as children. “Crippled” by sin, we have been saved and made anew by God through Christ. Not by our own merits, and at no cost to us, but at great cost to Himself. The hospital bills may seem steep, but they pale in comparison to the pure and perfect Son of God dying in place of vile sinners. And now we who have believed in Christ are children and fellow heirs with Christ, even as Emmaline is now fully a member of our family.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

I don’t deserve to be Your servant
And how much less to be Your child
Anger and wrath, sure condemnation
Should be my portion, my just reward
Never have seen it, never will know it
Your loving kindness enfolds my life

Chorus:
All You have shown me is
Grace, love and mercy
Now and forever, I am Your child
Freely You pour out Your loving kindness
Father of Grace, You welcome me in

All of the sin I have committed
Was placed upon Your righteous Son
And now You see me through His perfection
As if I’d never done any wrong
Always forgiven, always accepted
No fear of judgment before your throne.

“Always Forgiven”
Words and music by Jonathan and Ryan Baird
c.2004 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP)

I just spoke with Emmaline’s surgeon, Dr. Rinsky, who said her surgery went exactly as planned for repairing the right hip. To my resourceful and creative wife’s credit, he spoke glowingly of how clean the cast was. He said, amazed, “I have no idea how you did it, it must be in part because she’s potty-trained.” We had integrated our experience from cloth diapering our kids in caring for the cast, including the use of fleece liners and a cloth diaper cover. In addition, a relative had provided a pair of forceps (akin to six-inch-long tweezers) with which to safely squeeze her diaper deep into the cast to prevent any urine from stinking it up. We’d actually been told to expect it to get a bit nasty, so that all the more accentuates the excellent job that Lois did. Kudos to you, dearest.

I’m now waiting to see Emmaline, whose surgery completed at around 11:45am (went into O.R. at 8:10am). It’s just a matter of waiting for her to wake up from anesthesia. No doubt she’ll be grumpy. Pray that she’ll be a little more cheerful than last time, and that she’ll be willing to drink and eat, however minimally.

Thanks for your continued prayers on our behalf. This past year has been a whirlwind, and we continue to face many challenges. Emmie’s circumstances have been but one more of many unexpected difficulties. Please remember Lois — for endurance and encouragement — as she endures these trials:

• Caring for Emmaline in the cast
• Helping our 2 1/2 year old Andrew to adapt to the tornado of family changes. For example, he hasn’t slept through the night but a few times in the last six months.
• Our four year old, whether acting out or not, has been more a hardship than a help of late. Pray for him to be given grace to begin serving his family and not just selfishly acting up. Pray for Lois that she might be given patience to suffer his very “boyish” (a.k.a. wild) behavior.
• Calissa and her needs as an infant are always there as well. Though she’s relatively “easy,” she still needs to be nursed four times a day and held a lot.

Next up for Emmie? In about 4-5 weeks, she’ll be put under general anesthesia for an arthrogram to verify proper healing and a new cast. Then 6 weeks later, she’ll be free, except for a removable plastic brace.

I’m told by the doctor to expect that it will take her a couple of months before she actually reverts to a normal stance. Three months in a frog-like position takes a little time to undo.

In anticipation of her surgery tomorrow morning:

For those of you keeping up with our blog to follow the latest updates on Emmie and her hip surgeries, we are grateful for your friendship and prayers.

On Monday (two days from now), Emmaline will be undergoing a second surgery to repair the dislocation of her right hip. Just under two weeks ago, the surgeon successfully performed an open reduction on her left hip. He will do basically the same procedure on the right. While we don’t anticipate any problems, your prayers are nonetheless appreciated.

This past week she has been almost “normal.” Of course, the “almost” is essential. She’s been more fussy and high-maintenance than typical, which we attribute to her inability to move around on her own. In addition, her normally small appetite has been even more temperamental. However, on the bright side, what bruising and swelling there was from the first surgery is almost entirely gone, and she no longer needs pain medications. That is, for two more days!

So please pray that she will recover quickly from the second surgery, that she will eat and drink without fussing at the hospital to facilitate an earlier discharge; and that we will all be given much strength from God for the long road ahead of healing and care.

This morning, I had a serious conversation with my four-year-old son about sin in his life. Conveying the nature of sin and how it corrupts a creation made in God’s image is not easy. Nor is it easy to communicate to him that he was made for so much more, i.e., to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

This conversation took place in the back of my car, while parked in the garage. We weren’t going anywhere, nor had we recently come from anywhere. Suffice it to say he was buckled into a car seat so that I might get his attention and address some evidences of pride and self-centeredness that have been cropping up of late.

As I admonished him, the first thing that caught my eye in the garage was a lawnmower. I suggested to him that if a lawnmower could speak, and proposed that it would rather stay in the garage and rest rather than go out and cut grass, it wouldn’t be much good. It would be, so to speak, a waste of a perfectly good lawnmower. It was made for a purpose: to cut grass. You can probably see the parallel to how sin “wastes” us - men and women created in God’s image - and keeps us from living for the purpose for which we were made.

I think he understood. He probably also forgot the main point. Then again, he’ll probably surprise me sometime and mention how we’re like lawnmowers, next time we’re in the garage. Time will tell. And repetition will certainly be required.

I came across a similar and probably clearer metaphor this evening from Derek Thomas, a minister of teaching First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MO. He suggests:

A Stradivarius violin made by cutting and sanding and glueing various kinds of wood enters into its glory when, after an aging process, a violinist of the calibre of Mr. [Joshua] Bell makes it sing. The true glory of any instrument comes when it is doing what it is made for. It gains its dignity and worth by showing us what it can do.

And we were made for worship. Only as we do so do we display the dignity for which we were designed. Sin, on the other is “to fall short of the glory” (Rom. 3:23). Only as sin is removed (by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone) can we truly glorify God and be what we were meant to be.

I would add one comment: whether we know it or not, we do in fact worship at all times. It’s simply a matter of the object of our worship. Is it the self? Is it money? Or is it, as it should be, the God who created us and designed us to reflect His glory? Only in so doing, as stated above, “do we display the dignity for which we were designed.”

This is my entry to win a camera in the “Capture the Educational Moment” Contest sponsored by Spunky and Academic Superstore.

Pictured below are:

1. Our two sons, ages 4 and 2, both working on drawing books. The older, you’ll notice, is following the lines. The younger… less so.
2. Our older son watching with captivated interest a model train at the Children’s Discovery Museum.
3. And a slightly less recent moment.