Child of God.. or in this case an Adult of God

We often talk a lot about being a child of god and what this statement really means. along with being children of god we talk about just how great a worth of soul is to our heavenly father and today i think i saw a tiny look into just how precious we really are.
Once in a blue moon i will come home and tell Blair, "ya just can't love your job everyday" but most of the days i come home and rave about how much i love doing physical therapy and today one of those extra specials days when i truly feel blessed to do what i do. Every once in awhile a patient will come along that i know has touched my heart forever and this most recent example came in the form of a man in his 60's who used to work at subway and has recently suffered 2 strokes. His body is battered and in some ways broken but his spirit i don't think has ever been so strong.
Fernando and I have been working together 3 times a week for about 6 weeks now trying to get the right side of his body to move, relax, function and do the small things that we all take for granted. His right arm is a mixture of flaccid and rigid if that can even be possible. he basically can't get it to move or squeeze his hand, but when i move it its stiff and has to be done very slowly. we aren't making a lot of gains with his arm, but what we are lacking with his arm we are making giant strides with his right leg. now one of the trickiest parts about our sessions is the fact that because his stroke occurred on the left side of his brain his speech has been severely altered. Basically he can no longer form words although he knows EXACTLY what he is trying to say. His words basically come out "gammma gamma" Wamma wamm" with a few spanish wards only on a few rare occasions, but he understand exactly what i am trying to tell him and i have mastered the art, with i think of the help of the big guy upstairs, of what he is trying to tell me or ask me.
every session we work on bending and strengthening the right leg, we practice going from sitting to standing, we work on strengthening his hip muscles, his butt muscles, trying to pull his toes up and down, we work on kicking the leg out and marching in his wheelchair. basically i try and do anything i can to facilitate a walking motion. All this is done in sitting. Then we stand up and he uses a special cane in is left hand while i hold his right hand and his armpit and off to the races we go (well kind of) needless to say it is very stressful for me and A LOT of hard work for him trying to put weight on his right foot and then advancing it when he should. usually i have to help slide the right foot along but over the past few weeks he has been understanding the different techniques i have been trying to show him.
TODAY WAS OUR BEST DAY YET! he was able to put his weight on his left foot and i could feel him bending his right now and trying with all his might to swing that right foot forward. It was truly a miracle. basically when a person has a stroke and they are learning these basic things they have to create a new neural pathway in the brain. Needless to say it is NOT an easy task. We had gone about 25 yards when my friend Fernando just started crying. He was so happy he couldn't hold back the tears. We took a few more steps shedding tears and then sat down. The next few minutes i will never forget. I got down to his eye level and held his hand told him how proud i was of him. I looked at him and said you have probably never worked so hard in your entire life, at which he responded with more years and a smile.
Now Fernando and I have a lot of work to do before he will be an independent walker, but today we literally took our first steps in that direction. This man has the most courage, love and motivation i have ever seen. While i was sitting there holding his hand and letting him cry i got a small glimpse of just how much god loves us and how we are SOO special to him. We are his greatest creation, and even after the body wears out our souls are still there shining and full of love. It really is a day of "work" i will never forget.