Strength in my soul

I will give you praise with all my heart: I will make melody to you before the gods. I will give worship before your holy Temple, praising your name for your mercy and for your unchanging faith: for you have made your word greater than all your name.

 

When my cry came to your ears you gave me an answer, and made me great with strength in my soul.

Though the Lord is high, he sees those who are low; and he has knowledge from far off of those who are lifted up. Even when trouble is round me, you will give me life; your hand will be stretched out against the wrath of my haters, and your right hand will be my salvation.

The Lord will make all things complete for me: O Lord, your mercy is eternal; do not give up the works of your hands.  Psalm 138

Here are some recent pictures of our sweet and beloved Vitoria. We feel we are so blessed with her life, it is a great privilege for us to be her parents and to love her. It is so wonderful and a great joy to be with her that all challenges we have seem to be so small. It´s the most beautiful and amazing expierence of my life. Now, we have no doubts she recognizes us, she communicates with us, she  expresses what she likes or not, and she expresses she feels loved. I learn a lot with her, with her strength, with her peace, her sweetness. She knows how much she is loved for God and for us, and that´s enough for her. It is something like a different language, the language of unconditional love, that we use to talk with her, and she understands it perfectly.

And I am so happy and thankful that there are so many people everywhere that understand this love!

I´d like to thank with all my heart everyone who visits Vitoria´s blog, who lets lovely messages, who follows and link her story, who pray for her. You have encouraged me many times to keep on this blog, to keep on writing about her, and also encouraged me to be strong in the difficult moments.

I am sure God sent her for us with a wonderful purpose, to help us to understand his unconditional love, to learn how to love, how to live, to give importance to the right things in our short life in this world. I hope with Vitoria´s life so many people can also learn with us about God´s unconditional love. I hope and I pray that more families can feel encouraged to love and accept their babies even with a difficult diagnosis or a fatal condition, and to enjoy all possible and precious time with them.

That´s why I decided to create a blog in English, because I believe much more families could learn about Vitoria and be touched for her story.

I haven´t been able to write very often here, since I need a bit more time to write in English, than in portuguese... I´d like so much to share more about our amazing experiences with Vitoria, to express more about our feelings and thoughts in this beautiful journey, as I use to do in portuguese. But I believe her life and her pictures speak by themselves and God can use them to touch other hearts, even that I wasn´t able to write even one only word iu English.

So, here are some pictures, also from a few days ago, when she was still a bit angry about her growing teeth...

She was angry and complaining a lot

time to play and exercise



on the ground!

  

 take a look at my teeth!



  

 little princess

time to sleep!

Unconditional love language

14 months full of color

Nevertheless I am continually with thee: Thou hast holden my right hand. Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all them that play the harlot, departing from thee. But it is good for me to draw near unto God: I have made the Lord Jehovah my refuge, That I may tell of all thy works. Psalm 73:23-28

Our precious girl is already one year and two months old. We thank our Father for her precious life and health.

Our little baby girl is not so little and so baby anymore. We see old pictures and realize how she grew and developed. We are so thankful for the privilege of having her as our daughter, for everything we have learnt and how we are happier and more complete today, even having faced so many challenges and having cried so many tears. Actually, how bigger our challenges are, bigger victories we have, and our Vitoria is each time bigger!

She was very angry last days because of her teeth, she spent some nights crying and complaining, and now she has two teeth (and I suspect more teeth are coming soon).

look the way she likes to sleep in her crib

she always like to hide her face, as when she was in my belly

We had some weeks with many appointments. We had to make new boots for her feet, due to her right club-foot. We also got a hearing aid for her (she can hear, but better with left ear). She has some noises she uses to communicate with us and we hope now she will communicate better.

I needed to make her identity card so that I could subscribe her to be evaluated in an excellent Rehabilitation Institute here in Sao Paulo. She left her fingerprints there and once more she´s showing the world she is a young little citizen full of rights like any other child, (despite, unfortunately, not everybody recognize this in our society). Although, we are so thankful that we find wonderful people everywhere we go, that love Vitoria, and give us lot of support in our amazing journey with her.

So we have new challenges in front of us. But after each new stage won, we can see clearly the mighty presence of God guiding and sustaining us. Each new day we have a new reason to smile. Even with a bit of pain - as when a tooth is growing.




These pictures are from some weeks ago, when the weather was very hot, now it is getting a bit cold and we are having some grey and rainy days, very often in Sao Paulo.
The weather may be grey, but our life with Vitoria is full of color, full of joy.