A Lesson in Being Grateful...

Sometimes we just need a kick in the rear to remember how good God really is to us. My sister send me a link to a foundation called Kari's Heart Foundation. It was started in honor of Kari Schoondyke, who passed away recently at 7 months of age due to a congenital heart defect. My sister and brother in law are friends with Kari's parents, and the Schoondyke's have begun this foundation to provide assistance to families who are dealing with a hospitalized child. So I went to the website to check it out. (http://karisheartfoundation.org)
At the bottom there was a little video of Kari's short life. And so I started the slide show. I knew it was going to be sad, but I told myself that since I already knew how the story ended, I should be able to watch it without getting torn up. Wrong.
I did good till about halfway through. There was a picture of Kari after one of her open heart surgeries, laying there in just a diaper, with that scar down the center of her chest and tubes plugged in everywhere and her eyes covered up. That's when I lost it.
The reason? In a cabinet in my mother's house, there's a picture album with a picture of another little girl. She is 11 months old. She is naked, with a scar down the center of her chest, and a clear box over her face, and tubes plugged in here and there. This little girl was also born with a heart defect, a hole in the septum that seperates the ventricles of the heart.
This little girl is me.
And I sat there, with tears running down my face, and though about how wonderful my God is. I know Kari is in heaven, because all children are innocent. And I thought, how wonderful that he saved us both.
How wonderful that, years after he guided the doctors at Vanderbilt University as they patched my heart, he did it again, when it had been broken beyond repair. He truly does bind up the brokenhearted, like the Bible says!