You never know where your story will take you.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of telling our story on different platforms, but one of my favorites takes place annually on a local college campus. On Friday I had the pleasure of talking to a group of students at Eastfield College. The class consists of high school seniors who are working on dual credits. The teacher invites me to speak to her class because her students might someday want to work with children like Gideon. So, I get to speak to them about what life looks like for families like ours; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It’s a pretty cool experience. I’m thankful Mrs. Watlington asks me to do this, because I love raising awareness for Gideon’s condition. Plus, I also love that I can bring all my kids with me so the students can meet them. But more than that, I love the deeper message that I get to tell. Weaved throughout our story is always the message that God doesn’t waste any of the trials we face. Romans 8:28 reminds us that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and have been called according to his purpose.

I believe if we choose to see the good then we can use even the most difficult circumstances for good. Nothing in this life has to be wasted, not even a degenerative disability. But not everyone sees things the way we do.

Recently I was going through our filtered YouTube comments, something I don’t do often. This is because most of those comments use offensive language that I’ve blocked. So here are two of 160 comments that were “held for review” …

 “Why the **** would you keep this baby and not abort/euthanize him? His life is going to be horrible, he basically doesn’t even know that he’s alive.”

“If the baby is deaf and blind, why didn’t you just abort it or kill it in a humane way after it was born? Why allow a child that can never be independent live and drain resources?”

But for every one of those comments, we see 500 positive, loving responses. And occasionally, we get some pretty cool ones like these…

“I have depression and I have tried to suicide a lot, but after seeing this video I think after all there’s hope and happiness in this world… thank you for being such a good parent, Allah bless you and your precious kid.”

“You’ve made me cry in the best way. Never have I believed in God but if he is real he made you man. I’m a father too and we all struggle but you are a true blessing to your son. Every parent should see your vids/story it’d make me them better people, Godspeed.”

The message I wanted to get across to the class at Eastfield College is this- the way we view our circumstances changes everything. For our family, our perspective is that there is hope even in the most challenging of circumstances. That is why it is important for us to share our story; because we never know who needs to hear of the hope that we have.

And as we choose joy in spite of our circumstances, we write a new chapter that leads us on a new path. New paths mean new journeys.

And with new journeys, you never know where your story will take you.