The Blog and It's Name

So as I first learned about the world of blogging and first read other's pages, I often wonder how they chose their name and why they started their blogs. Some are self explanatory and others not so much. So I thought I should start by explaining why I chose the name and why I started this blog.

The name comes from the fact that the first letter in each person's first name starts with a different letter of the alphabet going from A to F. Angela, Brice, Christian, Dakota, Elijah, and Faith. Very simple. If you call our house and get our answering machine you will hear "hi you've reached the alphabet family". We only made this "alphabet naming" deliberate when we got to Eli really. Dakota was only named with a "D" half deliberately, but once we named him we figured we had to keep going. And as far as we are concerned there will be no G or further down the alphabet unless God has other plans.

So of course now to explain why I have created a blog. This may be long, random and all over the place, but hey it's my first post. So I guess I have to go back a ways and explain that I have two special needs kids. My 4 1/2 yo Dakota is high functioning autistic and my 3 1/2 yo Eli was born with heart defects and heart disease. You also have to know that because of these issues we have been through an enormous amount. I hope to talk about these things in other posts but just know it's been a long journey to where we are now. I originally started thinking about doing a blog about 6 months ago. I originally wanted to start one specifically for my autistic son Dakota so that I could encourage other moms with children who have autism. I'm really very technologically challenged and tend to do things the "old fashioned way" though so starting was really just a thought and I really had to gain some courage. Then in November we learned my son Eli was going to be having open heart surgery again. His heart is not doing well. On this latest journey with Eli I feel like I have grown in my Lord Jesus Christ quite a bit and although the growth comes from Him only, he used a particular mom and her micro-preemie girls to help encourage me on this path. He used her blog to do this. Then I realized how much a blog can be used to reach people I never would be able to reach in person. He has provided the internet as my mode to become a "missionary". So now I am a missionary. A missionary of the internet.