The Double Miracle Baby

Our world today offers many lifestyle choices for the young adult singles demographic group. It’s a time that has been referred to as the freedom of singleness period. Often they are finished with their education and have entered the work force fulltime. There are many options for things to do, many places to travel and the freedom to select from many entertainment experiences.  This freedom had reached its limitations for Pam and, quite frankly, it was not giving her the life for which she hoped. It simply wasn’t enough to satisfy the longings of her heart.  Something was missing.

A friend at work invited her to come to church with her at Southside where she attended. It sounded alright to Pam and they made it happen. The experience reminded her about the time earlier in life when she had asked Jesus to be her Lord and Savior. The life she was living sure didn’t match up with that earlier life decision. She felt the call of the Holy Spirit to do some spiritual business with the Lord about her life, and that is exactly what she did. Jesus was waiting for her when she came to get things right, and she experienced His forgiveness and grace in her life.

Michael was an adult single who had trusted Jesus as his Lord and Savior many years earlier, but he too, had drifted far from his spiritual roots. Alcohol had become a serious problem in his life that he knew he would have to confront sooner or later. In a bar one night, he found himself in conversation with someone who invited him to Southside. Being invited to church inside a bar seemed a little unusual, but he knew he needed a change so he decided to come visit.

He was trying to get things spiritually right in his life, but alcohol continued to dominate his actions. Two months after he started attending church, he was involved in a serious (alcohol related) accident that left him with significant injuries, including having his fractured jaw wired shut. Drinking his food through a straw was not a pleasant experience. That was the wakeup call that led his heart back home to his Lord and Savior. It seemed that God was saying that He had a plan for Michael’s life and He wasn’t going to let him throw it away because of the bottle. The hold of alcohol on his life was over.

The paths of Michael and Pam began to merge when they were separately encouraged to join a singles life group at the church. They were told that these groups help their members to grow spiritually in their faith and their Christian walk. Each joined a particular singles group which was – the same group. Can you see where this is going?

The members of this particular group were encouraged to stay in contact with each other, if only by an occasional email. Get this picture.  First, consider Pam who is emailing this guy who has his face wired shut because of his poor life choices, and then consider Michael who wants to ask Pam out to dinner, but won’t until he can actually eat something. Well, the wires finally came off, he asked her to dinner and they started their journey together.

They were not in a hurry to increase their commitment to each other, because they had made many bad decisions in their lives before meeting and they wanted to take things slow, allowing God to continue to strengthen their hearts. After seven months, things were going great, until they weren’t.

Discomfort in Pam’s chest led her to the doctor to be examined for possible pneumonia. That diagnosis would have been simple to deal with, but it wasn’t pneumonia. It was Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma!  It was cancer!

Let’s think about this:
•They trusted God to save their souls.
•They trusted God to forgive and cleanse their wayward lives.
•They trusted that He was providing a possible life mate.
And what they got was a storm named cancer.

The cancer was treatable and together they started the five month battle. Now they were having to trust God with her survival.  The end result of the Chemo treatment was that she was pronounced cancer free and they looked to move forward with their lives together. They were married a year and half later.

Learning to trust God and allowing Him to be the Author of your life story is a continuing process. A new chapter was opened in that trust journey when they were informed by the doctor that because of the chemotherapy she had little or no chance of conceiving a child. In fact, he estimated there was only a 1% or 2% chance. Trusting God in this situation was an additional and difficult challenge for them both.

After spending a year praying and hoping that a pregnancy would occur in spite of the odds against it, they began to look into adoption as an alternative way of having a family. Through all of this, they continued to ask people to pray for their situation. Pastor Johnny McDowell asked them to come forward during the invitation time at the end of a service, so they could pray over them. Lynn McDowell and Donna Williamson joined them in a prayer huddle on that particular Sunday. These ladies had been earnestly praying for this couple for quite a while that Pam would not only conceive, but deliver a heathy child. God began the answer to their prayer when surprise, surprise, after a short while Pam got pregnant.

There were many others who had been praying that God would intervene and give them the desire of their hearts. As the weeks turned to months, people continued to pray daily, until that blessed event took place. God answered the second part of their prayer giving me the privilege of introducing to you, Emerson James Holmes. He is a fine baby boy who arrived at the healthy weight of 8 lb. 11oz.

He is a double miracle child.  His conception was a miracle, and like all babies, his birth was a miracle.

God asks us to trust Him to be the Author of our life story from the beginning and through eternity. Storms are a part of everyone’s life and God uses them to grow us in His Grace. Like Michael and Pam, will you trust Him to write your story and to direct your path? You can trust Him through the many ups and downs that we all experience in this life. You can trust Him from now and through all eternity because He is the “Author and Finisher of our faith” Hebrews 12:2A.
Isn’t God’s Grace a wonderful thing?

Roger Allen Cook

I love to write stories about God’s grace.  If you have a story I should consider, please contact me at:    roger.cook@southsidefamily.com