I wrote this presentation for a speech I gave on May 10th, 2003.
It was given at Crossroad's Assembly of God Women's Ministries Mother's Day Banquet.

First of all I want everyone who thinks they are special to stand up.  Now, I want everyone who thinks someone else in this room is special stand up.  What my question is today is what makes you so special? First of all, everyone should have stood up because God made us unique, he has given us so much, and has allowed for us to be blessed even though we are undeserving.  If you are a mom in here today raise your hand.  How many of you stood a minute ago when I asked if you thought you were special.  Guess what, giving birth to a child, raising that child, letting go when you want to hang on…that makes you special. I need a mama volunteer.  Ok please stand.  Ok we know you are special because you’re a mama.  But tell me 5 reasons being a mama makes you special?   The further you dig in your heart and try to find why you yourself are special, the harder it gets.  Can I have a volunteer that is a daughter?  Tell me 5 reasons your mom is special.   It is much easier to find special qualities in others than it is in ourselves. If you know why someone is special, tell them.  Everyone loves to be encouraged and complimented.  Especially if they are down.  God says in his word in Hebrews 10:24 to acknowledge those that refresh your spirit.  In Isaiah 50:4 He says it can be a gift.  When I thought of this scripture, I tried to think of someone I know that just by looking at their life, has the gift of encouragement.  I thought of Chandra Kirkham.  I do not believe I have ever been in speaking distance of Chandra where she didn’t at least tell me hi and ask how I am doing.  And not only at church.  I saw her in Wal-Mart a few times and she was her usual happy self, juggling her baby trying to console her, but took time out to talk to me.  We would talk for a few minutes and I would walk away feeling better. And preparing this presentation also made me realize that I may have never told Chandra that she is a special person.  So now, I would like to say that Chandra, you are an inspiration to me as a woman, a mother, and a friend.  Thank you.

I had to stop and pray many times as I thought over this whole “special” thing.  I had to ask myself what makes me so special before I could get up here and ask you all that.  The people in my life are what makes me special.  When I was little, it was my daddy and mama.  They did the best they could with their rebellious one.  That would be me.  When I was good or did well in school, I was praised for it but when I was bad…………well lets just say I was encouraged to be good again.  My grandmother also made me special.  She would come and get me for church every Sunday.  If not for her, I can’t say that I would be in church today.  As I hit my teenage years, fourteen to be exact, God put a very special person in my way-Tim.  I met him at church and just knew I was in LOOOOVVVEEEE.  Daddy wouldn’t allow us girls to date until we were 16 so I new I had to keep my new found love a secret.  And so I mostly saw Tim at church.  When I turned 15, what I thought was a secret ended up not being so much a secret.  Daddy told me that Tim could come to the house and see me but we were not dating until I was 16.   Now, my mama wasn’t too thrilled about that.  Here was her 15-year-old daughter having a 20-year-old man come to see her.  I can only imagine her fears because as a mama, I wouldn’t like it either.  Tim would have a stroke if when Colby is 15 she asks if a 20-year-old guy can come to the house to see her.  But now today when I say I am 29 and he is almost 34, it doesn’t seem that bad.  So here I am, 15 and so very special.  I have a mama and daddy who love me, a Granny who is still watching out for my spiritual growth and encouraging me to go to church, and the greatest boyfriend on earth-Tim.

Now over the next 2 years, I wasn’t sure just how special I was.  Tim and me were on again off again.  Of course I just knew mom and dad were insane and had no clue about being a teenager-almost adult.  My older sister was off halfway around the world in the army and my little sister, who was only 10, surely was not my friend.  Now, when I was 17, all the pieces of the puzzle came together.  I realized I was so very special and had never stopped being special.  On December 30, 1991, I realized my mama and daddy did know what they were talking about, Tim was my best friend and true love, and that what I had to tell my sister halfway around the world would shock her pants off.   I was pregnant.  For some reason, God must have thought I would make a good mom.  Now what I did, getting pregnant before I got married was not right in any way form or fashion.  If I would have been walking with Christ, as I should have, it wouldn’t have happened.  But not one day have I ever regretted having my baby girl.  Two weeks after I found out I was pregnant, I married my best friend.  Now, here I was the most special woman in the world or so I thought.  I had a wonderful husband, great parents, loving grandmother, and a baby on the way.  On May 27th, 1992, my world rocked, hard.  My daddy died.  Now if you want to know what can make you feel no longer special, lose a loved one.  I was broken hearted, sad, depressed, and six months pregnant. I was watching my mama almost fall apart, then stand strong and worry over me.  I was devastated to say the least.  My daddy would never see his granddaughter.  For a while I blamed God.  My daddy was a good man, good dad, and good husband.  Why let him die.  But I got my answer.  One night as I prayed for my mama and us, and questioned God again, I felt God tell me he took him because he was so good.  He didn’t want a good man to suffer so when it wasn’t necessary.  Over the months, I watched my mama grow in Christ.  I watched her survive.  She inspired me in so many ways.  Times were hard sometimes, but she fought through.  On September 5, 1992, I was special again.  I was a mama.  Colby was born and I had a family.  I guess of all my years of life, I can say 1992 was a milestone year.  So much happened that year.  I got married and became a wife, graduated high school, lost my daddy, and became a mama when I had my own little angel on earth, Colby.

A couple of years rolled by and we were happy.  We decided in July of 1994 to try to have another baby. Up till this point an outsider would think, “Now what makes her so special.  There are a lot of women who grow up, marry their teenage sweetheart, have kids, have a great family, so what’s the deal with her.”  I will tell you.  Sometime around mid-September, God was passing out little ones to mommies and daddies.  Giving them down to earth for them to raise.  He came across a little boy who had uniqueness in his little body.  He knew this one would need some really special parents to care for him for it would take a great deal of time, emotion, patience, financial juggling, sleep deprivation, patience, happiness, love, and most of all, patience.  Now there are millions of people in this world.  He could have chosen anyone of them.  But he didn’t, he chose Tim and me.  He saw something in me that if you would have asked me 8 years ago if I could handle a child like him, I would have said no way.  Absolutely not.  But God knows more than me and zipped him right on down into our lives.  On June 23, 1995 Austin was born. We came home and all was well.  Until his newborn jaundice didn’t go away and he didn’t gain weight.  Our perfect baby was sick.  After many doctor visits, on August 9, we were told he more than likely had a very rare liver disease call biliary atresia.  They would need to do surgery to fix him the best they could, but eventually, he would need a liver transplant.  Biliary atresia is a non-curable disease that attacks the liver.  It slowly kills it by scarring.  For many years, I was in denial.  I didn't think God would actually give me child with a disease this horrible.  I thought it was the worst thing ever.  But after many stays at Arkansas Children's Hospital, I found there is so much more in this world that is worse than what Austin had.  I still had trouble accepting what was going on.  But God set me straight and I have opened my eyes.  He has not deemed a healing on Austin for reasons beyond my understanding.  I always thought because the Bible says, By His stripes we are healed, everyone who is sick would be healed.  But it doesn't say, by His stripes it is mandatory that God heal everyone.  It just says he can and sometimes will.  God has in many ways healed Austin.  Most children with the disease have many more complications and have already had a transplant.  Many are on lots of medications and are much sicker than he has been. Austin has been spared alot.
 

Now, after the first of many stays at the hospital, I felt like a very bad mother.  I didn’t feel like I was doing something right.  I mean, why in the world would God give me a child like this.  And my Colby was so good.  She was only three.  After having mama and daddy all to herself, now I was afraid she would feel left out and alone.  I was gone so much to the hospital and she would have to stay at a baby-sitter so Tim could work.  But God knew what he was doing in the very beginning.  He sent us a special little girl with a huge heart.  She feel in love with Austin the day she held him when he was born and has never resented him or the time that we have had to spend away from her because he was sick.  She helped me take care of him at home, always willing to play with him, help me feed him, anything.

Now I loved Colby and Austin so much.  But I certainly didn’t want any more kids.  God however didn’t see it that way.  On April 6th, 1997, I found out God had sent another little soul to us and that he or she would arrive sometime in November.  Boy was I upset. I felt so many times that I neglected Colby, not intentionally, but I was away with Austin so much.  I wondered why in the world God would give me another child to love, when most of the time, I felt I wasn’t loving her enough.  But, I finally came to like the idea of another baby.  I was just very scared.  What if this baby was sick too?  I didn’t think I could handle it.  I thought the worst days of my life had already come and gone.  I mean, how could it get any worse.  But worse it got.  On November 17, Austin wasn’t feeling well and so we went to the dr.  She told us he just had a stomach virus and it would take a few days to run its course.  On Wednesday the 19, I was admitted to the hospital to have induced labor the next morning. The new baby, Tyler was born around 12:30 the next day.  We were so happy.  Colby and Austin just loved him and argued over who could hold him first.  By 3:30, Austin was being admitted into the hospital.  Tim had taken him back to the doctor when he wouldn’t eat.  He was severely dehydrated and his tummy was swelling, almost before our eyes.  They admitted him in the room with me.  We were pretty stretched financially so Tim had to work as much as possible.  So Aunt Patsy stayed with Austin, Tyler, and me that night at the hospital.  Tim left around 6 that afternoon.  It was decided not long after he left, that Austin probably had a small bowel obstruction.  His surgeon in Little Rock said it could maybe resolve itself if they dropped a NG tube and relived the pressure on his stomach.  So by about 8 o’clock, I was sitting at the end of my little boys bed, trying to explain what they were going to do.  He was only 2 ½.  I prayed that God would help me cause I didn’t know how to help him.  No mother should have to experience anything like I did that night.  It was then and still is to this day the hardest thing I have had to do with him and as a mother.  About 4 woman nurses and one male nurse came in the room.  Aunt Patsy was still there, Roseanna (used to be Stone) worked at the hospital then and was visiting then, and Linda Goodson was there holding Tyler.  I sat in front of my baby on his bed.  He was scared to death.  He didn’t understand why all of these strange people were in his room around his bed.  The nurses plans were the women nurses were going to hold him down while the man put the tube in.  Now for those of you who do not know, a NG tube goes through the nose and threads down into the throat to the stomach.  Sometimes it takes many tries before it goes through the nose just right.  I told them I would hold him and he wouldn’t fight them.  They of course didn’t believe me and asked me to leave the room.  I had just had a baby hours before and didn’t need the stress of this.  I guess they were all crazy cause I was not leaving.  I had never left him and wasn’t going to start now.   I was his mama.They sat the bed straight up and told me to hold his hands in his lap, one other nurse would hold his head still while the man put the tube in.  I prayed so hard.  Why did my baby have to go through this, why did I?  He started crying.  What broke my heart was when he looked straight at me, and with tears streaming down his little face, begged me “Mommy please help me, help me!”  Over and over he begged me to make them stop.  He didn’t know how bad I wanted to.  I would like to have knocked that man away from my son, and made them all leave but I couldn’t.  I knew that this was going to help him feel better but there was no way I could make him understand.  All I could do is sit there, hold him down, cry my eyes out, and tell him I loved him so much and how sorry I was for having to let them do this.  By the time they were finished, all the visitors were crying, the women nurses were crying, and the man just told me he had to leave the room for a moment but he would be back to talk to me.  He came back a few minutes later and told me he was sorry he had to step out but he needed some air.  I could tell he might have shed a tear or two.  The line was in place and all we could do was wait.  The next day he was worse.  The surgeons wanted him rushed to ACH immediately for emergency surgery.  I had not been discharged yet and couldn’t go with him.  I wouldn’t let them take him alone.  Tim was at work.  I had to get him.  I called Bro. Chambers.  He was such an important part of our lives.  He said he thought he knew around where they were working in Hope, he would find him.  The hospital said they would give me two hours to get someone there, and then they were taking him.  By some miracle, Bro. Chambers went from his house, to Hope, found Tim, and got him back to Arkadelphia in right at the 2 hours.  Bro. Chambers, Tim, Aunt Patsy, and my mama went to Little Rock with him.  I had to stay behind.  About an hour later, Tim called.  They were prepping him for surgery right then and he would call back when it was done.  He was crying.  I sat in my hospital bed, holding Tyler, otherwise alone, and cried too.  Oh I loved my new baby boy and did all I could to make him happy.  I just needed to know that my other baby boy was ok.  A few hours later, Tim called me back and said all had gone well.  He was going to be ok.  I finally got home that evening and convinced Uncle Dale to take me to ACH Saturday morning.  Colby got to go to.  She missed her brother so much when he was away.  We got to see him and he got to see his sissy and new baby brother.  A few days later, he came home.  I had my hands full to the brim.  I had to make him walk ever so often, care for Tyler, keep up with Colby, take care of the house, and generally, not go insane.  But, God made me special, and He helped me to do all I had to do as a mama.

In March of 2000, I got really depressed.  I was tired, and felt I had lost control of my life.  Tim and me were not getting along, we were again having financial struggles, the kids were all insane (in my opinion), and I just could care less about anything any more.  I had no one to talk to.  I felt alone, and certainly not special.  I honestly felt that my family would be better off if I just left.  I finally broke down and talked to Dana, who lived in Louisiana at the time.  I don’t know what I do without my sisters, both of them.  They are two more reasons I am special.  She encouraged me and promised to pray for me.  A few days later she sent me an email.  I think in my entire life, no one had ever to that point said anything that touched my heart like her email did.  And still to this day, all I have to do is re-read it to be lifted up.  I will not read the entire email, but picked out some of the specific sentences that changed my outlook on life.  She wrote, “You were gifted a special little boy which means to me that God sees you as a special and strong woman.”, “You are a special person and I love you very much.  I am glad you are my sister and glad you are my friend.  I love you and wanted you to know I admire you.”.  It is so awesome how just a few sentences can uplift and change a person.  She renewed my spirit and again I felt I could continue on.
 
 

As I go forward from there, to July of 2002, let me say Colby and Tyler were a great inspiration to me.  Never once did they hold bad feelings for their brother for all of the time taken from them for his care.  They have always loved him and helped him with anything they could.  A mother couldn’t ask for kids any better than mine.  Now in July, Austin was again in the hospital.  They found a cyst located underneath his liver.  It was 4 cm across.  That is slightly larger than a golf ball.  They decided to watch him and do another ultrasound in November.  We went home and the kids all started another year of school.  Colby in the 5th grade, Austin in the 1st grade, and Tyler in head start.  November came and the ultrasound was good, no changes in the cyst.  But on Saturday, May 3rd, we were off to the hospital again.  This time they were not sure why he was sick.  Before, it has always been infection.  Not now.  As they performed another ultrasound, the cyst had changed.  Where before it was thought to be underneath the liver, they found it is actually inside the liver.  It is still the same size but they found it to be breaking itself up in the middle and saw debris floating around inside.   They diagnosed him as having resolving viral hepatitis.  They also fear that this cyst may be having an impact on him getting sick.  On Wednesday, they sent us home.  We have to watch him really close and if he runs any fever, gets sick at all we have to take him back to ACH so they can surgically drain the cyst.

Since the other day when we were told about this, I have research bile cysts.  I read nothing good.  All things I read said that children who develop these cysts do not have a good prognosis.  They will generally require a liver transplant sooner than if they had not developed the cysts.

 For the first time in quite a few years, I am scared.  How do I explain to my son that his sick liver is getting sicker?  How do I tell my almost 8 year old that in an unforeseen amount of time, he may have to get a new liver?  How do I make him understand that this is so serious?  How do I make Colby and Tyler understand that their brother is so very different than other kids are?  Isn’t it my job as a mama to make them see all these things, to explain life to them, the easy parts as well as the hard?  How do I make myself see that everyday as I watch my kids grow, that as one of my little boys body grows on the outside healthy, that on the inside it is slowly dying?  How do I convince the part of my heart that that’s a mother that God has a reason for this that is beyond my understanding? And the hardest questions of all are, how do I face the reality that children DO die from this disease?  Why would God give me a life to watch over just to take it away?  I think the worst pain a mother can experience is the lose of a child.  I don’t want to have to know how it feels.  So the answer to all my questions must remain the same.  Fully Rely On God.  God will give me words when I don’t have any, He will give me strength when I am wore out, He will uplift me when I am down, He will help me understand when the hard times come.  And He will give me the comfort and peace I often long for.

In closing, I guess I will say this. Being a mother is the most special thing I am.  God is the most important thing in my life and after him would be my wonderful husband, Tim.  But, of all the things I have been and am today, of all the people who make me special and are special to me, my children, Colby, Austin, and Tyler will always be my true heroes.  Thank you.