Battle Scars of a Mighty Warrior

This warrior is a fine young man.  He came to be our son when he was almost 6 years old.  No one had ever tried to adopt him before.  I’ll tell you what, anyone who looked at his file and turned away….it was their great loss and our great gain. 

When he came to our home he was 6 years old and weighed 24 pounds! YIKES!

This young man, who has always had a body that doesn’t function correctly, one he can’t purposefully move very well, a mind of about a five year old but the heart of a seasoned Christian.  So loving and caring to all he meets.  He is an amazing person to know.

                                   As a lamb in a church play.

It started when he was about 8.  I would hear him talking in the night.  I would go in to check on him and when I asked if he needed anything he would say "No,  I am just praying for Miss Margret.".... or it would be Miss Stephanie or one of the other many people he had overheard needed prayer.   Then off and on during the day,  I would hear him go into such beautiful prayers, petitioning God on behalf of those he knew needed prayer.  He would ask often during the day if I had heard from this person or that person.  Do they still need prayer? 

                              

                                  Decorating holiday cookies.

These prayers he prays are not a caned child’s prayer.  They are anointed and well thought out, heartfelt, spiritual prayers.  I have heard them for years and they usually go something like this….

Oh my God, my dear God, I come before you today because our friend Mr. Delmar needs you so much right now.  Please help him.  Please be with him.  I know how he is feeling, Lord.  I have hurt like he is hurting and you helped me and heard me.  Please heal him and help him in a mighty way.  Please God.  Please God.  Please.

Then he goes on to the next person and then the next and eventually comes back to the first person.  They are beautiful anointed prayers specific to each person’s needs.  My son has a way that when you talk to him, he eventually starts to repeat himself and recycle previous conversation.   So his prayers, so heartfelt, so powerful from the heart of a kind and loving Christian brother in Christ, go round and round up to the throne of Grace to be heard by God.  He is one of the truest and most sincere prayer warriors I have ever met.  I believe it is his calling and reason to be here on the earth.  God has worked miracles in his life and health so many times.  Glory to God.

                            

 

This child has so many diagnosis I wouldn’t know where to start to tell and explain them all.   When I give him a shower, my hands run over so many scars.  Huge ugly thickened scars…..Battle scars from so many surgeries and so much prayer for his recovery.  The train tracks that run all the way down his whole back from the nape of his neck to beyond his lower back.   Oh, the pain and long recovery of him having his spine rodded and the whole time he kept a good attitude and kept  praying for others.  The many scars that criss cross all over his head where he has had countless shunt revisions, at least two of those requiring hospitals stays lasting several months.   The whole time, surgery after surgery, sweet, kind, suffering ever praying, Antonio.  Prayer Warrior.  The scars from his colostomy bag where it had been removed, from his pick lines, from so many IV’s, all battle wounds that shout the pain he has went thru and the comfort and healing that God has personally brought to this child of God.  He is not bitter over what he went thru, doesn’t ever ask why me but remembers and uses those times of struggle to build his faith and petition the Lord on behalf of others needs.

All the children I have still living at home are special needs, medically fragile or both.  Out of all my children Antonio’s disabilities can’t be hid.  When we are out in public the other kids usually get talked to but often not him.  People are uncomfortable around him.  They don’t know how to act or what to say.  It takes him a long time to answer a question and often times people don’t understand him.   I am so grateful to several people that I know that go out of their way to always say hello to him when over or when we see them out in public.  Bless them good oh Lord.  Those people don’t know it but he prays for them more than anyone else because he sees them more often, he has had meaningful contact with them, they are on his heart and mind!  The other children have visitors come to the house but usually not him.  I feel for him at times.  I mean he takes it all in stride and just loves life and doesn’t usually let much bother him.  (about 99% of the time) But I feel for him.  Oh, how I wish everyone knew the real Antonio that we see every day.  People would walk up and shake his hand and speak to him.  Not shun him….But I know that (1 Samuel 16:7b) man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.  

                    Being out in the heat takes a lot out of him.  

My brave son.  My young man who prays and prays for others has been struggling emotionally lately.  He feels things so deeply and he is trapped in a body that he has no outlet for his sorrow or when he is upset.  His mind is like an innocent child so sadness over whelms him with no way to release it or process it.  He also has Fetal Alcohol syndrome.  So has trouble regulating his emotions at times. Praise God usually he is just overly happy. (on very rare occasions he just looses it)  Well the last few weeks has been one of those struggling times for our Antonio.  The last time he went thru this is when my oldest son moved out on his own 5 years ago.  Antonio was sick to his stomach from nerves for months and missing his brother so much.  It was about three months before he got back to his happy normal self and now he is going thru this again.  I think what started it is we had company come that he has prayed for, daily, for years but had only seen once in his life.  They came for a visit and he enjoyed seeing them so much, when they left he was very upset and down.  Then Elizabeth’s dog died… we are a very close family….and watching his sister grieve for her dog, that passed away, was a lot for him to handle.  She grieved loudly crying off and on for days.  He deeply loves his siblings.  I remember each one of my littles as they were toddlers climbing up into Antonio's lap in his wheel chair and him holding them, singing to them, playing with them.  Them laying back on him and watching a movie with him.  He is a wonderful big brother and to see his little sister so distraught and he could not comfort her was overwhelming for him.

The last few weeks have been hard on him.  He is not himself.  He is down.  He has thrown tantrums.  He just cries sometimes.  I feel for him in so many ways.  Please keep him in your prayers if you think of him, as he is a precious soul. That the joy of the Lord will return upon him and be his strength.   I know this season will pass and very soon he will be back to his jovial self.  But as his mother I hate to see him go thru hard things, the battle scars on the outside and on the inside run deep in this man.  I feel, when one loves as deeply and pure as he does, with the mind of an innocent child.  He grieves so hard and deep, feels losses so hard and deep.  Even now, while struggling as he is, he is still ever praying for those he knows and loves and their needs.

He has always been such a good boy and inspiration.  I have learned so much from him thru the years.  It brings me great joy to call him my son.  He is a godly son any parent would be so pleased to have raised.

Revelations 8:3-4 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.

May the grace and love of God be tangible to you today in your life, 

 susan