B and I were reading the Good Book together along with The Book of Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals . We had just sung together the suggested song for the day, "Solid Rock":
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
...
If you are not familiar with the ordinary radicals book mentioned above, each day they have a refrain that we read 3 times. The one for this morning was:
"Show us your goodness, Lord : and steady our hearts in you."
In the midst of the litany, we both looked up to see an amazing thing. Soren stood up on his own in the middle of the room (not unusual), and then did something neither of us had seen him do in his 3.5 years of life. Without any support, he shifted weight onto one of his legs and took a tiny step with the other one! (B remembers him even taking a second one before falling down.) We were both so stunned; we jumped up and ran to him cheering and clapping. As we encouraged him, he did it over and over again, no more than one or two steps at a time, but that was enough for us. The video below looks like so small a thing, but for us it is these 6-second moments we have been longing many months to see, representing a tremendous amount of strengthening work, that some of you have helped with:
trampoline!
and bed bouncing time,
and standing to read,
and walking holding two hands,
and cruising along couches,
and, most recently, walking holding one hand),
...and
words of encouragement, patience, and the help of a good God. Many of
you have prayed along with us, longing to see this moment, and so we are
happy to share it with you today.We sat again together to finish the reading and to give teary thanks to God for his goodness.
And then another wonderful prayer from the day's reading shocked and blessed us:
"Lord, steady our feet when the world tries to rock and shake our faith. When materialism beckons with coy hands, steady our feet. When lust sashays within us, steady our feet. When fear tugs at our knees, steady our faith. Show us your goodness, and steady our hearts in you. Amen."
God, this is our prayer for Soren:
Steady Soren's feet,
his knees,
his faith,
his heart
for all that is ahead of him.
Thank you for being his steadying God.
We love you.
