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Chapter 1: Preparation

I am becoming more and more fascinated by the wonderful way the Lord leads us and prepares us. Three years prior to Christopher's birth, Woody and I had become youth sponsors in the high school class of the church we were attending. This was the beginning of the fulfillment of a burden that the Lord had laid on my heart when I had accepted Him as my Lord and Savior in my sophomore year in high school. And it was a joy! I remember shortly after leaving the church the night I became a Christian knowing that someday I would serve young people. Here, nearly ten years later, this burden was being fulfilled. Two years after becoming youth sponsors, still nearly a year before Christopher's birth, I began to feel the Lord directing me to start a class for college age students at the church I was attending. At that point in time, I was leading a small high school prayer group at our house. Although I enjoyed it, the idea of teaching a class of collegians was intimidating to say the ve...
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Chapter 2: A Time To Every Purpose

The phone rang in my office and I answered only to hear the distraught voice of my wife on the other end of the phone. She was at the doctor’s office and she had some bad news. "The doctor says I have toxemia," she said in a sad voice. "My blood pressure is elevated and I have a higher than normal amount of protein in my urine". "What does that mean?" I responded. "It means that I may have to stay home from work. Dr Braid said that toxemia is fairly common, but it can be serious. I have to come back next week for another test. Will you come with me?" she asked in that voice that I could never refuse. "Of course," I replied. Surely the doctor has made a mistake. Or if he hasn't, the Lord will heal her, I thought to myself. After all, it was earlier in the year that we had become aware of the millions of babies who were being aborted in America each year. God wouldn't let anything happen to our baby, I reasoned. He would rem...

Chapter 3: Birth

Friday morning was to be a more typical morning for me than the past week at home. I had finished a portion of the project I was doing. My sister, who worked as a nurse from Monday through Thursday, volunteered to come over to stay with Woody so I could go to work. Prior to her getting there, I took out the blood pressure cuff that we had purchased to monitor Woody's blood pressure and took a routine morning measurement. "150 over 110?" I measured as I felt my heart begin to pound nervously within. I tried again only to find the same results. That was significantly higher than what I had gotten before. Trying again, Woody began to get suspicious. "I'm confused," I thought to myself. "After all, I'm not a doctor and I only learned how to use this thing a few days ago. I'd better call Liz". Liz, my older sister who had been a nurse for several years, was due to come over. Certainly she could show me what I had been doing wrong. While we w...

Chapter 4: NICU

Once Christopher was taken from the surgical room to the intensive care unit, Woody and I breathed a sigh of relief. Being our first baby, nevertheless a premature baby, we really didn't know what to expect. But now, still riding high on the experience of seeing him born and hearing him cry, we shared a joyful moment together. I had decided to stay with Woody while the doctors completed the operation. The monitors showed Woody's blood pressure still high, but for the first time in weeks, trending downwards. Following the surgery, I followed Woody to the recovery room where she was to wait until the effects of the anesthesia wore off. After making sure she was resting well, I gave her a kiss and headed toward the neonatal intensive care unit to look for my parents and to see how Christopher was doing. Out in the waiting room, my parents and sister were anxious to hear the news. "Woody's doing fine. She's in the recovery room," I said. "We had a baby bo...

Chapter 5: The Red Sea

It was early evening when Woody made it into her room on the maternity ward. I had arranged for her to be in a private room and this turned out to be a wise decision. Outside in the hall was the hustle and bustle surrounding any maternity ward: parents and grandparents making trips to the term nursery to point out their baby; babies being carted to and from the nursery to their waiting mothers; ribbons pinned to doors exclaiming "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!", flowers and stuffed animals being delivered to rooms.  It’s difficult not feeling cheated when you see all of these healthy babies and think of how another 4000 unwanted babies had been aborted that day in our country. And all you want is one! What could God possibly be doing? Fortunately, being in the middle of a crisis, didn't give us very much time for this type of thinking. Our faith would have to carry us through. My parents, sister, and brother-in-law had decided to wait around for the ped...