25,185 Days and Counting

Weather statistics show that residents of Kansas City, Missouri enjoyed unseasonably mild temperatures on December 21, 1953. The afternoon's high temperature reached nearly 50° F.  That night, a cold front brought plummeting temperatures and snow. 

At midnight, my dad drove my mother to the hospital in a blizzard.  Entrusting his wife into the capable hands of the medical staff and knowing her doctor had arrived safely at the hospital, he breathed a premature sigh of relief.  

I was a transverse presentation and the doctor was unable to turn me for a normal birth. My mother needed an emergency C-section, and a surgeon was called. Winds gusting to 25 mph and blowing snow kept the surgeon from arriving at the hospital in time.  

The doctor somehow delivered me at about 5 a.m., breaking my right arm in the process. He told my father, "Your wife will be ok but I don't know about the baby."  My dad had to be helped to a chair.  The doctor felt certain I had breathed amniotic fluid.  

Morning light revealed 8 inches of new snow and an inexplicably healthy baby girl who was breathing normally, albeit with a broken right arm taped to her chest and a left arm that was lifeless because of birth injuries.  

Several days later, I moved my left arm for the first time, inspiring tears from an entire shift of nurses. They gathered in my mother's room, taking turns holding a baby whose Christmas miracle was to be that she would go through life with two working arms.  

Today I am humbled by the fact of God's love and grace. Apart from events termed "miraculous" by the doctor who delivered me, I would never have had one day of life. Instead, as of today, I have enjoyed 25,185 days and counting.   

Dear Lord, thank You for life.  Thank You for my mother's prayers. Thank You for Your grace and mercy, that cover us. Thank You for loving us so much.