Today is my sweet Michael's birthday!  He would have been 15 today.  We should be going to get his permit on Monday.  He should have started high school with his brothers this year.  He should be playing sports and going to high school ballgames and hanging out with friends.  He should be here with us blowing out his candles and opening his birthday presents today and enjoying all life has to offer and basking in the joy of it being his day and celebrating him on this day.
Well, we are celebrating him today and I hope and pray that he knows how much we miss him here.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of him.  I thank God for him every day and for the time we shared while on earth.  I know that I will see him again and until then I hope that I can live a life worthy to get where I know Michael is now.
I'm reading a great book right now called Rare Bird.  It's a memoir written by a mother who lost her 11 year old son in a freak accident while playing in the neighborhood.  I have loved reading her thoughts and feeling like they are my own put so beautifully into words.  In the book she is brutally honest with her thoughts and emotions of her grief. Her son's name was Jack.  She states,"What I'm still learning is yet another way to look at Jack's favorite Bible verse, "For nothing is impossible with God."  Jack used that verse to encourage himself in doing hard things, despite life's challenges. Then, with the accident, the verse seemed to mock me.  For (even with) God, nothing is impossible!  Our precious child could die!  Eventually, it revealed itself in a third way:  God can give comfort through birds, rainbows, dreams, visions, clouds, and signs.  Why had I thought that a holy God wouldn't  or couldn't use those means to show His love? Nothing is impossible with God.  And finally, I've been learning that with God so close to me in my heartache, what I thought was impossible is possible, surviving and perhaps eventually thriving despite losing my Jack."  Reading her words made me think of where our family is right now with our current adoption.  Through God working in our hearts, something that we thought could be impossible is possible.  There is a little boy in our home that needed love, guidance and a family to call his own.  And now he is here! God has put him in our lives and I hope to give him all that God, who created him, intends for him.  As I grieve for Michael, I do know that God is watching over him now for me.....just as we now watch over, and love, one of God's lost children ....our very own little Luke ShuChen Yang!
We always decorate our Christmas tree on Michael's birthday.  Today it was a joyous occasion for little Luke!  He loved hearing the Christmas music and hanging all the fun "kid-made" ornaments.  Yes, we have that Christmas tree...the one with all the construction paper ornaments that are basically dried glue and glitter. Priceless ornaments... literally priceless, lol...and you don't have to worry about anyone breaking them too.  Luke ShuChen loved grabbing them and laying claim to some as his and then pointing to the others when he thought it needed to belong to them.  He even pointed to Mama when there was one that he thought belonged to me.  When finished he looked at us and then the tree and just smiled and clapped his hands.  Greatest moment of the day!
Thank you God for giving me Michael!  Even though he was only here for 23 months, he lives FOREVER in my heart and the hearts of others, and for that I will be ETERNALLY grateful!