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pictures of Avery and Abe together. Also, she painstakingly cut individual letters out of magazine headlines to create a title for her artwork:
    For This Child I Prayed
    When Emily saw Avery’s finished project, she read the title out loud—“For this child I prayed”—and realized that there was nothing accidental or broken about Abe’s presence in the Alexander family.
    â€œI got to a point pretty quickly after his diagnosis that of every mom in the world, God chose me to be Abe’s mom,” Emily remembers. “The Lord has given me an incredible amount of patience. For example, Abe doesn’t sleep, so I don’t sleep. But things that at one point seemed like a big deal just aren’t a big deal anymore. Abe has simplified our lives in the best way.”
    Had he stayed in Ethiopia, Abe would not have survived. But here, in America, he is making so much progress that neurologists say he is literally defying modern medicine. Responses that would normally travel through the frontal lobe seem to have found a back road in Abe’s brain.
    â€œHe’s super alert,” Emily said. “He tracks with his eyes, has great facial recognition, and he can hear and verbalize.”
    One doctor told the Alexanders, “If I hadn’t seen Abe before I saw his MRI, I would never think it was the same child.”
    By April 2009, during occupational therapy sessions, Abe was beginning to be able to move his left leg and arm, creating new neurological connections and confirming for his amazed family that God was at work.
    â€œ[Abe] was super determined and not nearly as miserable as some of the faces he managed to make,” Emily wrote on the family’s blog. “Keep praying—we see Him working daily.”
    Everyone is so quick to say that Abe is blessed that a family like the Alexanders adopted him, Emily says. “But our family is so much more blessed to have Abe. He is this fourteen-month-old teacher. Sometimes just opening his hand takes an enormous amount of effort and energy, but Abe works so hard in therapy, and my other kids get to see this determination. He just has this little, bright light, radiating an inner joy that you can’t explain.”
    The Alexanders like to talk about “the ripple effect” of Abe’s adoption. Like throwing a pebble in a pond, it has brought people together who have gone on the journey with them, both physically and spiritually. Through Abe, the Alexander children have learned to pray more consistently and more specifically, and they have passed that lesson along to others. A young boy named Jeremiah, the son of family friends, called to say there is a tree near his home that blooms red in winter and reminds him of Abe. Jeremiah prays for Abe every day when he passes the tree on his way to school. In May 2009, the Alexanders received an e-mail from dear friends who said that after watching Abe and his new family, they, too, have decided to adopt a child. The same month, the Alexanders completed their paperwork for a second adoption from Ethiopia.

6
    Ron
    E very couple of months, Deborah and I would take Mama and Daddy to a nice restaurant. He would grab the first waitress he laid eyes on, whether ours or not, and in a voice much louder than necessary, say, “Honey, before you do another thing, I need a whiskey—Jim Beam and Coke, not too much Coke!”
    I remember one night at a restaurant when I’d had enough of his disrespecting my mama, and I let a disgusted look creep onto my face. He looked back at me, puzzled, as though I were an alien specimen from an unknown universe.
    â€œWhat have you got against drinking?” he said, sure that had to be the problem.
    â€œNothing, Dad. Sometimes I even have one.”
    â€œWell then, why won’t you drink with your old daddy? You think you’re too good?”
    Never did I let him see me take a drink. I even quit drinking altogether for a