This photo looks just like any other four year old running.  It’s not though. This is a picture of a miracle, caught in action.  A collaboration of answered prayers, right there.  Casting a shadow. What a stroke took away God has returned.

With mobility for Zack, came humility for Mom. An awareness of how wonderfully made we humans really are, inside and out.  I assumed my children would walk and run.  Whenever they wanted and however they chose.  Then I had Zack. Suddenly standing and reaching would be a milestone that required work and pain, for both of us. 

When considering all of the distastful things I have done in my mothering career, I despised stretching those little legs the most. There is something completely unnatural in knowing that you must lay your hands on tight, tiny muscles and push. We moms are programed to keep our kids from pain, not bring it to them. Most of motherhood is designed around keeping our babies from hurting. I found myself making the most difficult of choices. Stretching him would bring the ability to walk and run. Life. Not stretching him meant more pain in the long run. I wanted life for my son.

So In order to bring life to my child, I had to stretch him, which brought immediate pain. We cried our way through that time. I would drip tears on him as he screamed.  Reassuring him that in the end he would be stronger for it and begging for my own strength to continue. Stretching Zack became an excercise in faith. Doing what comes unnaturally, consistently, with the belief that God is mighty to save.

And He did save.  Zack and I were both changed by the stretching. He grew more limber. Stronger.  I did too.  I was able to see that God sometimes allows us to suffer so that we can have life.  Stretching us. Molding us so that we can run, not limp.