Because Brave is such a stronghearted little guy, with resilience to spare, we've assumed things to be hunky dory on his part, in these early weeks of the adoption.
Then yesterday we took a video of Jubi Sue learning English (which she is doing very rapidly), and it wasn't until the third time viewing it that I noticed Brave jumping around in the background of the video, pointing to his nose and pointing to his eyes and pointing to his mouth. I don't know what was sadder, the fact that he was cheering for himself because no one else was, or the fact that I didn't even notice he was back there.
By the time I realized this horribly sad thing, Brave was already in bed. I shared this with Daniel, and we prayed for him immediately, my mothers-heart telling me that he had been affected by the attention Jubilee had been getting. It wasn't a few minutes later that we heard him crying from his bed (something he never does) and we rushed in to get him. We brought him to our room and tried to talk to him, but he wasn't awake. We have found our toddler sons in this state several times: not awake, not asleep, eyes moving around the room, not looking at anything in particular, bodies limp, mouth loose and drooling, whimpering slightly.
I decided a little brainwashing/hypnotic therapy was in order, seeing this as an opportunity for healing that G0D had provided in a direct answer to prayer. (Stick with me, I know this might sound a little hokey). We started by telling him we were proud of him, just like we were proud of Jubilee. Instantly his not-awake face turned down into a deep pout and big crocodile tears rolled down his cheeks. I realized he could hear and understand me perfectly. So I took his limp hand and role-played/dream-played with him, saying, "Brave, where's your nose?" and then touched his nose with his limp hand and then cheered, "Yay, good job, Brave!" The more I did this, I noticed a strange, dreamy smile come across his face. I knew his heart was healing right before our eyes.
Either that or he had had a stroke in his bed and we were looking at the first night of the rest of our lives.
Thankfully, the former turned out to be true. He woke this morning more confident and happy than I have ever seen him.
What have I learned from this? That Brave is suffering and we should feel guilty? That I should have been a hypnotist? No. I've been reminded that G0D is completely faithful, and can be trusted to care for the deep, tucked away parts of our childrens' hearts; and that prayer is smokin' powerful and we should do it more often.
