Our Christmas Miracle

The fumes of Polyurethane wood stain were visible in the air. I coughed and gasped for breath and covered my mouth with my shirt. I rushed out of the room and upstairs. After a half hour, the fumes were travelling to where I was sitting behind a closed door. I sprung up and threw clothes into a bag as quickly as I could. It wouldn't be safe for me to breathe this in at nine weeks pregnant.

That night, I stayed at a friend's house. She graciously welcomed me into her home on short notice.

When the morning sickness was gone the next day, I began to worry. The food aversions were gone, the overwhelming hunger was gone. the cravings were gone. I prayed over and over again, and even asked some friends to join me in this "unspoken prayer." (We weren't telling people yet.)

A week later, the nausea was still gone, but I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Way Maker, Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the darkness - My God - that is Who You are.

I held my breath and steadied my trembling hands as the midwife slid the cold gel across my stomach and the image came into focus on the screen.

Arms Flailed! Legs Kicked! Little torso tossed this way and that. A definitive nose and space for eyes showed on the screen. And a faint flutter. A heartbeat.

Maybe it had been my imagination, and the baby had been fine all along; or maybe God, in His mercy heard our prayers and brought a 9-week-old back from the grave. It all feels like a miracle regardless when you see those limbs, that oversized head, those little ribs and spine protruding from a grape sized frame.

Now, speaking as a mother, I can honestly say, I've never witnessed anything that has felt more like a miracle than life in the womb. When everything I eat and how much sleep I get and what I let myself breath in is all putting a human life's well-being at stake, and I see them alive and squirming, heart going, summersaults and trapeze antics all about the amniotic fluid sack, I'm amazing. There's nothing like it.

God has taken so much away from me over the years, but this time my Miracle Working God worked a miracle. That is Who He is.

This Christmas, I know you may be quick to remember the heartaches. Our baby is also a "rainbow baby." We know sorrow and loss many times over in various ways.

But perhaps, you can look for glimpses today of how this Christmas, God is the Miracle Working God. The One Who sent Jesus as a baby. The most beautiful miracle of all, because this baby was God in flesh. The Miracle is salvation. the Miracle is God Himself.

And perhaps there are tiny miracles all around you that point back to this ultimate miracle. I pray as you read this, God would open your eyes to the miracle.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Ephesians 3:20-21