Do You Believe in Miracles?

Today was my son Ben's 5th birthday. We had a fabulous time celebrating, first at VBS today, then with a really fun party with our friends tonight. I'll post later about the party (and the cake), but today I want to reflect on a time in my life where I saw God perform a miracle in our lives.

At 20 weeks of gestation with our son Ben, we went in for the ultrasound, not expecting to find out anything except whether or not we were having a boy or a girl. The sonogram technician spent a lot of time checking out all of the vitals on Ben, including really examining his face. She couldn't get a clear picture of his face so she asked us to come back in two weeks. Call it naivetee, or maybe God was just protecting my heart at that time (because I tend to worry A LOT), but I didn't think anything else of it and I was just excited to see our baby again. At the follow up appointment, the technician once again looked long and hard at his face and I finally asked what she was looking for. She had suspected a cleft lip two weeks before, but now after looking again, she was sure that's what she was seeing.

Of course, we were devastated to hear that news. The doctor was called in and he agreed with the technician's observations. They didn't see any other abnormalities in our baby, but they did send us for a level two ultrasound with a perinatologist.

The perinatologist performed the level 2 ultrasound and didn't see anything else wrong with our baby, but he couldn't be sure if he was seeing a cleft palate or not on the ultrasound. In the meantime, we were referred to two different craniofacial surgeons in the area and we made appointments to meet with each of them in the coming weeks. We also scheduled a follow-up ultrasound with the perinatologist.

I've heard it said over and over that the times you cling to God the most is when you're in a dark time in your life. Prior to this situation, I hadn't ever felt like I was in a really dark time, but now I was there, and I spent a lot of time, especially late at night, praying. I would pray for wisdom in choosing a craniofacial surgeon, I would pray for my own heart when I gave birth to this child because I wasn't sure how I would feel when I saw him, I would pray that he would be able to eat without a feeding tube, but I didn't ever pray that he would be healed. I just looked at this situation as a foregone conclusion and I had to do everything in my power to prepare for his birth and then whatever trials would follow.

As time went on, the shock wore off, and we just spent our time excitedly preparing for our baby boy's birth. We had the follow up appointment with the perinatologist, and on this appointment he was able to see a cleft palate as well as the cleft lip for our son. This was bothersome news because we had learned while visiting with the craniofacial surgeons that the cleft palate is a more life-long situation that our son would have to deal with, with surgeries every couple of years to compensate for his growing palate. It was bothersome, but I wasn't surprised at this point.

Along the way, God answered our prayers and He was with us during this time. He provided a fabulous craniofacial surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Fearon, who Dan and I immediately trusted and knew he would take care of our baby, He worked on my heart so that I wasn't scared of our son being born, and He held Dan and I very close together during this scary time.

An interesting thing happened about a month before Ben was born. I had gone to our church's women's retreat and Dan had gone to church at home while I was gone. I got home that afternoon and Dan said our pastor had been preaching out of Matthew where Jesus is performing miracles because people were asking it of Him and they believed that He could perform those miracles. Our pastor said--and I'm paraphrasing here--that we must not pray to God in a watered down pansy sort of way. We must ask of Him our true heart's desire and have faith that He can answer, but also know and be thankful when He doesn't answer like we want.

Then my husband said something crazy...he was going to pray from now until Ben was born--4 weeks--that our son would be healed in the womb. I told him I thought that was a great idea and he could do it, but (and I didn't say this out loud) I didn't really think it was a possibility.

Fast forward four weeks to this day:

And then this:

Our son Ben was born with a very minor cleft lip and NO CLEFT PALATE! It was truly a miracle that could have only been performed by God. I am so thankful that He heard my husband's prayers and He answered them so fully.

I like to remember this story because it is the most concrete example of God's power in my life. It's so easy for me to forget, but all I really need to do is look at this handsome face to remember.