A Birthday Request for Corah; Very Important!! PLEASE READ!!

First, I'd like to thank you all so so much for the Birthday greetings! I've had lots of smiles today and am a blessed little lady to have seen so many of the people I love in the last two weeks.

Now I have a birthday wish that I would really like for you all to make come true. Let me tell you a story.

My cousin Jamie donated his kidney to his daughter, Corah, yesterday. She was born sick and in nearly four years of life, we've never really been able to say she was healthy. There were times when we thought her life would soon end, and weeks of desperation and sadness. But Corah Brigit Hanlon has a whole lot of life in her precious little body, and with a great deal help from her daddy, and a shower of grace from God, she's starting a new life today.

You all know how sentimental I can be, so excuse the fact that I'm going to that place and getting a little teary over here....

My thought is this: Today, July 27th, Corah gets to have a new birth day. And I get to share it with her. Oh, that I should be so blessed...

Corah's parents, Crystal and Jamie, are two of the kindest and wisest young people I've ever met. Jamie put faith in my writing in a way that inspired me like never before when they visited two years ago at Christmas. He is a loving and thoughtful man. He looks out for the broken, and brings peace to the hurting. Then there's Crystal. In my mind, Crystal is the perfect subject for the greatest poetry. She is the essence of womanhood. She'd bundle her Corah to her chest and walk in the snow of Maine in winter's most bitter fits, while pregnant with Corah's little brother, Burton. She plays and sings and reads with her beautiful children. She stands up for the oppressed, and challenges others to take action as well. Women like Crystal are what must have inspired men of the ancient world to believe that the were goddesses like Athena and Aphrodite. She is strong and even in the face of frightening times, she is brave; she is fierce.

These people deserve love from every corner of the world.

And Corah.

She is the single sweetest little girl I have ever seen. When I met her for the first time two Christmases ago, my heart broke at the thought that we might not get to see her grow up. It was too much goodness--too much purity--to see leave this world so quickly after it had come. I loved her immediately, and deeply.

She is the embodiment of joy: a truth that some people go their whole lives without ever experiencing.

My birthday wish is that all of you will help her to keep showing that truth to people every where she goes.

So here's the request.


My sister, Anne, and my mother, Kate, have set up an Indiegogo site to help financially support Corah's family. By following this link: http://www.indiegogo.com/careforcorah, you can watch a video with photos of Corah and a little bit of her story, and you can donate to help pay for the cost of the transplant and other medical procedures.

So, between my blog subscribers and almost 700 Facebook friends. Some of you are never on and won't see this, and some of you are children. Some are well-off, some have tight budgets. But one thing that I know is true of all of you: You all have hearts that know how to spread love.

I know this because I am so incredibly blessed by the love I've received in the last 23 years from all of you, and so many others. So today I have a request, a birthday wish. I would like for all of you who read this to go to Corah's Indiegogo page and donate a dollar or two. Our goal is to raise $1500 by November 24, but I know that we can do more than that with some help. I don't much like getting birthday presents, but if each of you would pitch in even that little bit, it will come together to make a huge difference.

Please open your hearts and help my dear, dear loved ones. And make my birthday wish come true.

God bless, and thank you all.


http://www.indiegogo.com/careforcorah