This past Sunday was my Son’s 32nd birthday.  The story of his birth is nothing short of amazing.  It all started with a visit from God in my apartment…

Photo Credit: daitoZen via Compfight cc

The Back Story

My wife, Mina, and I were really young when we got married in May of 1981.

R-E-A-L-L-Y young.

A few months after we were married she became pregnant.  Now we were not only young marrieds, we were also going to be young parents.  She experienced the normal bouts of morning sickness, light-headedness and the like.  Other than that, everything was progressing as expected.

Or so we thought.

An Unexpected Visitor

It was March 22nd, 1982, one week before my wife’s due date.  We had just finished supper.  Mina was doing the dishes and I had just sat down in the living room.  What happened next was completely unexpected and completely unexplainable, yet it is just as real today as the day it happened.

God walked into our apartment.

I’m serious.

I didn’t see Him, but His Presence was just as real as if He had walked in and sat down on our couch.  My wife was completely unconscious of this event, but I was completely captivated by it.  Unsure how to respond, in the quiet of my mind I bumbled out something like, “Lord, what’s this all about?”  His response shocked me.

“I want you to lay hands on your wife and command the birth processes to start.”

I was sure I heard wrong.  “Pardon me?”

“I want you to lay hands on your wife and command the birth  processes to start.”

And then, He was gone.  Just like that.

I sat there for a moment rather unsure of what to do.  I finally called Mina to where I was and told her what had happened, as well as what the Lord had said.  Her response was so sweet.  “Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt.”  So, I laid hands on her really large tummy and said, “I command the birth processes to start in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”  That was all.  We then went on with our evening.

Then It Happened

Mina began having contractions around ten o’clock that night.  Because she had never been through this before, she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.  This continued throughout the night and into the next morning.  Or course, the contractions were gradually coming closer together.  We finally called the hospital.  With it being her first pregnancy and a week before her due date, they were convinced it was a false alarm.  However, that didn’t stop the contractions from coming.  After a few more calls to the hospital they finally said we could bring her in.  They were sure, however, that they would just send her home again.

Once we got Mina inside the hospital, I had to park about a quarter of a mile away (at least that’s what it seemed like).  I went running back at top speed and was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the floor where she was.  The nursing staff laughed at me.  They told me I would be there for days.

They were wrong.

Ball Bearings on Fire

After we had been there a while, Mina’s doctor (whose office was across the street from the hospital) came in to see her.  I will never in my life forget what happened next.  He took one look at her and stopped in his tracks.  He then wheeled around to where I was standing.  The look on his face was terrifying.  I have always said his eyes were like ball bearings on fire.  He spat out his question through clenched teeth.  “When did she get so puffy!?”  “I…I…don’t know,” I stammered, and promptly left the room!  A little while later a nurse came to get me.  I was taking to a change room where I changed into scrubs.  I was then taken into the birthing room where, at 3:46 pm on March 23rd, our Samuel Elisha was born.

What We Didn’t Know

Sometimes a person can be thankful they don’t know everything up front.  What we didn’t know was that Mina had developed double toxemia (also known as pre-eclampsia), a blood poison that some women develop during their first pregnancy.  It is actually quite serious, which explains why her doctor reacted the way he did.  Nevertheless, Mom and baby were both quite healthy.

An Answer to Prayer

During this period in our lives, we had a friend in another city who prayed for us regularly.  One night she was particularly burdened to pray for Mina.  As she prayed, she had a vision on Mina laying on a cold steel hospital gurney with a sheet pulled up over her head.  In answer to this dear woman’s prayers, God walked into my apartment and saved the lives of my wife and my unborn child.

Forever Grateful

Words fail me to express how grateful I am to the Lord for His mercies to us that day.  I am forever grateful for the prayers of praying friends.  I am forever grateful to be the child of a loving Heavenly Father that hears and answers prayer.  I am so grateful to have an amazing son (picture left) who is one of the finest young men you will ever meet.  I am also grateful that I can now share this amazing story with you to encourage you to trust the Lord in your hour of difficulty.  Oh the glories of living in the Reign.

M