Another Interesting Encounter

Today I took the girls to Mc'Odonald's (that's what G calls it) for lunch since G earned a trip there last week but we weren't able to go last Friday. Anyways, after eating some lunch we went into the playland area and G was having a great time playing with two little boys there. Liliana was sitting in her carseat while I ran her 1pm feed. 3 women were sitting at the table across from us. Next thing I know G fell and was crying. One of the woman came over and asked if she was ok. I said, "yeah, I think so." Next thing I know G is back up and running around and playing like nothing happened. The same woman that came over to check on G says to me, "She is a good baby, isn't she (referring to Lily)?" I said, "yes, she is." After a minute or two she noticed that Lily was being tube feed. I then asked her if she was a nurse and she told me she worked at a local hospital near by. The conversation kept going and when she came over I found myself telling her about Lily's medical history with the 3 open heart surgeries and the mic-key button and all. For some reason I just added in that she had Down syndrome, don't ask me why, I just did. Maybe because she said she was a nurse in the Peds section of a hospital so I figured that she definitely had to have seen other children with Ds. I don't know. Anyways, once I told her she said, "I know." The other two women began to talk to me too and they just kept asking me questions about Ds and adding in things that they knew. This didn't seem to bother me at all. One thing they asked me that I have been asked many, many times was if I knew Liliana was going to be born with Ds while I was pregnant. I told them no I didn't and that I chose not to have any testing done. I also told them that I did not know about her congenital heart defect either. They seemed a little shocked about that but I told them that it didn't matter to me that Lily has Ds. I told them that when I became pregnant I knew that no matter what happened I would not abort my child. As we continued to talk the conversation went on to the fact of why would anyone ever want to abort a child with Ds? What is wrong with Ds? We all agreed that there is nothing wrong with it and I told them I like to think that my daughter has designer genes. They laughed. One of the woman began to talk about a group at Christ the King church that was called "God's Special Children" and how she used to be actively involved with it. I then piped up and said, " I go to Christ the King church!" She got excited and asked if they still had that same group, and in fact we still do. It meets every Wednesday night and it's a ministry at our church designed specifically for those adults with disabilities. Then as it turned out the woman who was the nurse said she knew I looked familiar, for she and I had just met and talked only 2 weeks prior to today when her son's band "For Him" was playing at our church. Her daughter and friends were in my children's ministry group that Sunday and she came down after the service to pick them up. I know we talked about where we lived and found out we live in the same city. Small world, I tell you! I told them that Liliana is a blessing in our lives and we are so happy we have her. This whole experience just made me realize that God moves in mysterious ways. If our friends Scott and Kathie had not told us about their church we never be there today. More importantly if God had not sent us Liliana we never would have been connected with our church. Our church CTK, was such a support to us when we were going through the surgeries and everything with Lily. They showed us they cared through food and money donations, but more importantly through their dedication to prayer. Those people prayed like no others. There is power in prayer folks. I am so thankful and so grateful that God had his hand in every part of our journey with Lily. God used something that in the world's eyes might seem so tragic to bring a family to him. He brought us together, closer together, and closer to him. Thank you Lord! It was no mistake seeing those people at Mc'Donald's today. It just helped me to reaffirm God's neverending love and grace that has brought me this far and will continue to carry me even further in the future.