Today is World Down Syndrome Day. It's celebrated every year on March 21...a reminder that there is a 3rd copy of the 21st chromosome. 3.21.
Get it?
I spent many, many years trying to make sure Joshua didn't feel any different. Trying to make everything okay with him. Hoping he wouldn't really know he was different.
I just wanted to build a really strong foundation for him first...family, friends, teachers, coaches, ministers, etc...who would work with us to help Joshua be the very best he could be...and to help him see that we have all been created by a loving and mighty God, and that we are more alike than different.
And that his life has worth.
That plan worked kinda-sorta well for a while. But, eventually, he saw, and he knew, and that part broke my heart.
He has limitations, LIKE WE ALL DO...unless one of y'all invented a cure for cancer, discovered life on another planet, or created a new type of Cheetos that don't leave your fingers all orange after you eat them...when I wasn't looking.
So we have spent the last decade, just celebrating our differences...and making THAT okay.
Joshua is the oldest child in our family. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
He is small, but mighty. He calls himself, "travel-sized."
He works hard to stay physically fit. He is an awesome power lifter. He likes martial arts. He is a writer. He has a big imagination. He loves his family. He is loving, kind, sensitive, funny, sincere, helpful, and stubborn.
He is a godly man, and a prayer warrior like no other. He has great insight.
Like all of us, he has strengths and weaknesses. Joshua happens to have Down Syndrome.
Of his FRIENDS who have Down Syndrome, not one of them are alike.
Which is how it should be.
More alike than different.
(World Down Syndrome Day, 2017)
"I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made..." Psalm 139:14
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