Meet Andrew

I want you to meet my little man. 

This is Andrew. 

Undoubtably, he has stolen my heart. 

Last April, Andrew and his mom, Jamie, walked into the infant room at Solid Rock where I was serving in the children's ministry. I saw a crying baby and an overwhelmed mother who were coming for the first time. 

I was hooked. I needed him in my life. 

You know, that tug at your heart that you have no idea why is there, but you just know. That's what it was. I had already had another child in my arms, but I was drawn to Andrew. I watched him, I watched his mom, nervous, leave her baby for one of the firsts times. And I just knew, I needed him in my life. 

Solid Rock does this thing called one-on-one. It's where children with "special needs" can be placed with a children's ministry volunteer who commits to be there every week so that the child is seeing a consistent face. 

I was determined to be Andrew's one-on-one. But I was unprepared for how perfect God would knit this together. 

Andrew was born with infant scoliosis. But he has an amazing mom, and an even bigger God on his side, fighting for him every single day. Jamie is absolutely incredible, I wish all of you could meet her and see how incredible she is. You can read more of Andrew and Jamie's story on her blog. 

When I first met Andrew and Jamie, Andrew was in his helmet, he couldn't walk, and generally the only time he was saying anything was when he was crying. And now, he's this amazing, resilient, strong little two year old (how did that happen so fast!?) who is running around! Running! He couldn't even crawl yet when he first came into my life. 

And our friendship grew. Deeper and deeper. And now, I have this amazing single mom who I feel is more like my older sister than anything. And this little boy, this little man who has stolen my heart. 

This past week we traveled to Utah for Andrew's seventh casting. Praise the Lord, we found out that his spine has actually been over-corrected by a couple of degrees, which is a positive thing in many aspects. He was molded for a brace and soon, Jamie and Andrew will be taking a giant leap in this journey of scoliosis. 

Andrew always tells me "I love you so much." And man, do I love HIM so much! This video melted my heart, so naturally, I had to share. These two I will miss when I leave this summer, but now you can see why I love them!