Warrior

Breathless, she approached us after our first church service in Mexico. The beautiful blond hair, blue eyed, young woman was on a mission to reach us. “The Lord gave me a word for your daughter,

WARRIOR.

I see a FIERCENESS in her that I can’t explain.”

Warrior: a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness. A person engaged or experienced in warfare, soldier.

“Your daughter! She is such a leader,” a preschool mom proclaimed as I walked in to pick up my 3 year old daughter.

“She seems to enjoy telling the other children at her table what to do,” the kindergarten teacher stated.

The 3rd grade teacher, “Wow, today we were almost taken back by the powerful leadership tone she took.”

Not one time, did a comment like this surprise me or catch me off guard.

We saw Mikayla 5 hours after she was born. 3 days later, we brought her home.

She has exuded strength from the moment we laid eyes on her. As mother over my newborn baby, I remember telling people, she’s just so strong. “Oh really?” they’d comment. “Yes, it’s not just her cry conveying her strength. It’s a message right from the Lord, ‘I made this one strong!'”

Mikayla would cry on and on as a newborn, making it very clear when something displeased her. But, she would also become overwhelmed with excitement when she was pleased. She would not nap. She loved to be out and about, especially out in nature. By age 1, she could already say close to 50 words. Even as a baby, she brought energy, purpose, and life wherever she went. She is and always has been, a force to be reckoned with.

I think about her beginning in this world. If I could, I would ask her birth mom, “Did you feel that force, that energy when she was in the womb? Did you sense God telling you, this girl has a purpose?”

When other young women have been in her position, they have made other decisions. Did she hear the Lord’s voice telling her, “This one is a fighter”?

Oh, how I wish her birth mom could see what her decision to choose life has meant for Mikayla.

Never did I see her purpose more clearly than when she was recovering from double foot surgery. Mikayla was born with hip dysplasia as well pes cavus (extremely high arches). The hip dysplasia was corrected by wearing a harness for the first couple months of her life. But, the high arches caused her to begin walking up on her toes and thus needed extensive surgery to lower her arches.

The recovery time included 2 months in a wheelchair, as well as numerous appointments to the Orthopedic clinic at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

Mikayla demonstrated her strength and purpose while singing worship songs to the little 18 month old boy next to us in the hospital recovering from surgery to remove a tumor. When the kids at school didn’t know how to handle her being different and in a wheelchair, she learned tricks to do on the playground in her wheelchair. When going to follow-up appointments, Mikayla would make her way around the waiting room at Children’s greeting all the other children in wheelchairs. And, when the surgeon lost his cool with her and acted unprofessionally, she extended a hug to him along with words of forgiveness.

I don’t know what the future holds for Mikayla. But, I am clinging to and already witnessing God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11-13, which says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.“