Seven Miracles

[Perhaps the greatest miracle of all was the state of surrender to which I was gently led.]

When my second-grader came home from school with a "special card for you, Mom," her "Dear Mom" message inside didn't explain the title she had printed on the front: "Things that couldn't destroy me." I asked her what these words meant, and she replied, "Oh, I was just thinking about all the things that happened to me before I was born. Those things couldn't destroy me, because God watched over me."

My mind raced back. Conception is always a miracle, but medical tests had confirmed what seven years of unplanned childlessness implied to my husband David and me: conception requires an extra miracle for us. Tests also indicated that, even when I did conceive, I was usually unable to carry the new life long enough to verify its reality. So my second miracle was that I carried this baby through the early weeks of its development.

But our dreams almost ended in tragedy one dark January morning in 1974, when an unseen pickup sent my Toyota spinning around. After my car stopped, the post of the steering wheel was between my knees, and the wheel was about an inch from my unborn child. The front of my car was completely destroyed, and the driver's side was buckled, jamming the door and breaking the window. Investigators agreed that I should have been killed, but I received no serious injuries--the third miracle.

One morning a few weeks later, a policeman surprised me with a summons. The driver of the pickup had received minor physical injuries, and her truck was damaged extensively. My insurance company was reluctant to pay, and a seventeen-thousand dollar lawsuit had been filed against me. As the policeman read all the professional jargon of the long report, it sounded as if I were being accused of premeditated commission of a hideous crime. The emotions of a woman with child are fragile, and I broke down in sobs before he could finish.

We were forced to file suit against our insurance company, and several months later they agreed to pay. Our fourth miracle is that my baby survived the emotional trauma this caused through most of my pregnancy.

Near the end of May, when I was entering my sixth month, I picked David up from work and slid out from under the wheel so he could drive back home. As we neared our house, the driver of a school bus began backing up, apparently not seeing the car behind him. The driver of that car, in a panicked effort to get out of the bus-driver's way, shifted into reverse and floored the gas pedal. As he rammed the front of our car, it was a hard blow for an expectant mother, but I was unhurt. Would my unborn child have been injured by the steering wheel if I had still been driving? I believe it was a fifth miracle that God had me on the passenger side when the accident occurred.

Even so, this accident may have played a role in what happened two weeks later. It was eleven weeks before my baby was due, and I began experiencing abdominal contractions. "You're probably right," the nurse agreed over the phone. "It's probably just false labor. But come to the office and let us be sure."

Almost as soon as the doctor began examining me, he said, "We'd better put you in the hospital overnight." That was Tuesday afternoon.

Attempts to stop my labor failed, and Thursday morning my bed was wheeled into the late labor room. I cried. Was I going to lose my baby? Did it have a chance?

As I entered the last stages of labor, the pediatrician waited in the delivery room, ready to begin immediate attempts to save my baby's life. At 1:04 p.m., I gave my baby to the world. Almost immediately, I heard that precious sound--a high-pitched, healthy cry.

"It's a girl!" the doctor yelled.

The pediatrician talked with me as soon as he had done all he could for my baby. "She weighed two pounds and thirteen ounces, and she's fifteen inches long."

"Is she going to be okay?" I questioned.

Modern medical advances have improved survival chances for premature infants since her birth in 1974. But all my doctor could say then was, "I wish I could be more encouraging. So far, the baby is pink and healthy. She has had some difficulty breathing, but is doing very well for her small size. But anything can happen when they are this small. Although the first twenty-four hours are the most critical, we can't be sure for several days. Anything can happen."

Later that day, I saw the child for whom I had waited so long. Her face was beautiful. How proud I was! But my heart was pierced by her body--arms and legs no bigger around than an adult finger. (Her ankle identification band fits my ring finger.)

"Denise," I cried, as I observed my tiny wriggling child through the nursery window." You've been torn from me before either of us was ready. Oh that I could wrap my arms around you and hold you close! Will I ever? Will you live to know that you have a mother who loves you?"

I visited the nursery window often. Friday night as I watched my tiny offspring--lying on her stomach with her legs drawn up under her, so small her body was completely covered by a washcloth--the weight of what was happening seemed to crush me. The years of childlessness. The months of carrying this little one inside me. The accidents in which she was spared. And tomorrow I would go home and leave her behind where "Anything can happen."

When I returned to my room, I released my sobs into my pillow. "God," I prayed, "I know You want me to pray, as Jesus did, 'Not my will, but thine, be done.' But I just can't do it. I can't tell You that if You take this baby from me it's okay. I just can't.

"Oh, God," I continued. "You just don't understand what You're asking. You gave Your own life. If it were my life, I wouldn't hesitate, but, God, You just don't know what it's like to be asked to give up your only child..."

All of heaven must have been silenced in the awe that hushed my lips. He had given up His only Child--not only for the world and for me, but for this tiny new life struggling to survive. Jesus had left heaven for thirty-three years. God had watched Him die a terrible death. Because of this, I could be assured that whether my daughter lived or died she could have eternal life. Even if she were dying this very moment, I would see her again some day, because of Calvary -- because God did not refuse to give up His only Son.

I could give Him my daughter because He first gave me His Son.

To read the story of what God did at Calvary, see the "How Can I Know God" series here.

If you are struggling to find meaning in life, see "Where are the Answers?"

Saturday morning, before I was discharged from the hospital, David and I were allowed to scrub, don gowns, and enter the nursery. As we put our hands inside the incubator and caressed our child's tiny body, we knew we would not have physical contact with her again for several weeks, if ever.

In a few days her condition was stable. Though Denise progressed rapidly from then on, the weeks dragged by for us. Finally, when she was five weeks old, we were allowed to hold her. We knew our sixth miracle had happened.

When we brought her home a week later, she weighed four pounds and ten ounces. Her doctors warned us that there was a possibility of mental or physical problems showing up in the early years due to her prematurity. But today, Denise is a healthy, normal adult. She never exhibited any evidence of having been born prematurely. And that is our seventh miracle.

It is always a miracle when a woman goes down into the jaws of death and comes back bringing new life with her. But when I am reminded of the things that tried to destroy my firstborn, I remember that it took seven special miracles to bring Denise to us.

And only God can perform a miracle.

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Note: Our son, Nathan, born when Denise was five. Though I experienced some minor problems in the early stages of pregnancy, I was able to carry him to term and deliver a healthy baby.