My Favorite Child

Found this video today on youtube, and gosh how my heart broke. In all the beauty of this loving and gentle video, there is so much heartache and so many awful images of what life used to be like, when our kids were sent away as little children "to be with children LIKE them". The portion of the video inside the group home will stop your heart for a minute, watching the boys, many of whom have DS, makes you want to break the door down and bring them home. And yet, those boys are middle aged men now, long lost to the ravages of life away from their families. I see his face as a little boy and I see so many familiar faces, faces of children I know and love today. I can't help but see in them who he might have been. No doubt this family adored their son. It was just how it was done then. Tonight, I am thanking God that this is not how it is done now. And that my child and all the others will have the chance to grow up loved, included, belonging. There is the same spark in the baby and little boy Dwight that there is in my girl, that sweetness and innocense. I am grateful that I live in today, when we no longer send our children away. But I am sad for us too, because now we just make the awful choice not to let them be born at all. Who is roght, and who is wrong? All I know is that I thank God for my daughter, genuinely, deeply, that He entrusted me with someone so precious. Hope you enjoy these videos, I did.