Testing Love...No, Really...Testing...Love

So, Love has been home with us now for 10 months. We are beyond pleased with her transition, her loving and sweet demeanor and her level of understanding...it will blow you away. But, she struggles with communicating. After discussing this with our social worker she suggested we have her tested through ECI (Early Childhood Intervention).

Today was that day. The ladies arrived here at 12:30 on the dot and were here almost 2 hours. They overwhelmingly concur that yes she is most definitely behind in cognitive, language (both expressive and receptive) and personal/social. What does that mean? Well, according to their screening and evaluation she is only at a 13 month level for cognitive and personal/social and a 20 month level for language (both areas). They also agreed that she was much younger which technically makes her not quite as far behind. On a positive note, she is at 35 months for both fine and gross motor development.

She will begin therapy in a few weeks. They both believe her hearing is the main cause of her delay. She had tubes placed in November but has still had 3 ear infections since then. They believe the secondary cause is that she lived in China for the first 20 months of her life.

Anyway, she will begin therapy soon and I am hopeful that we caught this in plenty of time so as not to delay her any further. At least it is on the radar now and we can make every effort necessary to help her communicate. I can only imagine how frustrating it could be to know what you want or even what you want to tell someone yet lack the skills to communicate it. I am hoping with her therapy and the tools they are giving us to help her here at home she will progress quickly. They do want her re-evaluated by the ped. ENT again though. Hmmmm....


No worries :)

As for tonight, I went to our Thursday night Bible study - He Speaks To Me. Probably the biggest thing to hit me tonight was a Bible verse that Priscilla (not Patricia?!) shared:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1 (The Message)

I absolutely love the -take your everyday, ordinary life and place it before God as an offering. Is that asking too much? Well, technically...its asking for everything, isn't it? We don't have to have fancy titles or homes or heritage. He just wants the everyday, ordinary life we all have to give. That means who we are all the time- a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, a housewife, a carpool driver...what we do- how we spend money, how we make decisions, how we live...what we say- how we speak, what words we use, how we say them....all of our many hats...to offer it ALL to Him. And really, isn't He worthy of that? If we just think about what God has done we have so much to be thankful for. Isn't the best way to show our gratitude is by living a life that truly honors and glorifies Him? I pray that my everyday, ordinary life is a pleasing sacrifice, a life of worship in which Christ can be seen.