Happy Birthday to the Improbable Baby

The doctor looked me square in the eyes and said, “Even if you were able to conceive, which is not probable, you wouldn’t be able to carry a baby full term. There would be major complications.”

With uncontrollable sobs, I shook his hand, and all but lifeless, left that office.

And never went back.

I was young in my faith, but wise enough to know that his report was not the Lord’s. And I was not to receive it.

Respect it. Yes.

Receive it. No.

I won’t go into all that I had wrong with me. But there was enough wrong for that doctor to point me towards the path of infertility.

But I’m a stubborn little thing. And I wasn’t budging. In faith, I wasn’t going down that road.

The body of Christ is so good to rise up around the infertile. They really are. It was a dark time. Dark. And prayer was not my forte. I was too sad to pray.

But I had people. People of the faith, stepping into the gap. Interceding on my behalf.

All this happened prior to marriage. I was engaged to Brent. We were facing our lives together and kicking it all off with the “you may never have kids” news. Oh, I tear up on the remembrance.

This was the first time in my walk with the Lord that someone had said to me, “We are going to believe the report of the Lord. And His report for you is good. His report brings you life. Not death.”

This doctor’s report brought death. Death to my faith. Death to my spirit. Death to my dream.

I vividly recall the day I read the report of the Lord. I was an intern teaching English at Maryville High School. Twenty-three. It was my planning block. I pulled out my Bible and it literally fell open to Psalm 113. I had never read it before. And the markings in it today are the original markings from this moment.

Praise the Lord.

Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord.

Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forevermore.

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord.

Psalm 113:1-3,7,9

This was His report to me. And I knew it.

But it was a hard one to believe for it rebelled against everything I had been told. It took a lot of faith to maintain this report.

It goes without saying that I found a new doctor. And, this too, was a God thing. She was the “one” everybody told me I should see, but she wasn’t accepting new patients. I can’t even remember how the Lord worked that one out. But He did.

She did an examination. Took blood. Looked at charts.

Then looked me square in the eyes and said, “I will deliver your babies. You just wait and see.”

Life.

Today, I celebrate the seven-year-old son I was never supposed to have. The boy I shouldn’t have been able to carry. The improbable baby.

Today, I celebrate the Lord’s report. I celebrate the faithful who interceded. I celebrate the doctor who spoke life.

Today, I recognize that these babies of mine are not mine, at all. They are the Lord’s.

On loan for a while. An entrusting to me.

Thank you, Lord, for Grant. Thank you that He is a picture of your healing and yourgrace.

A tangible manifest.

Glory.

Happy Birthday, Grant.