Our Son... Turns One!

Most of the readers of this blog know our story – how long we prayed for children.
As our little boy turns one year old on Friday, the 28th, I thought I’d share a little recap of the poured out prayer that led to his birth.

We found out that it was “impossible” for us to have children (in the words of a specialist at Duke University Medical Center) way back in 1988 - twenty years ago now. Our particular type of infertility was beyond the scope of medical science then.

So we began to pray.

We held on to that scripture from Luke (hey, that’s a great boy’s name, isn’t it?) that said “with God nothing shall be impossible”. Interestingly, at about the same time, a doctor in St. Louis, Missouri, had an inspired idea for a new surgical procedure and began to explore the possibilities with colleagues in Belgium. It would be years before the procedure was perfected.

Unaware of this, we were attending a church called Watauga Christian Center (later Living Water) where we were encouraged to believe God for the impossible. We ended up on the worship team there, pouring out our hearts to God and being used by Him to draw others into deep worship. Our prayers for children and the necessary belief that Almighty God was really God Almighty – able to do anything – added depth and passion to our worship leading.

Finally in 1998, 10 years into our praying for children and feeling more than a little discouraged by the apparent fruitlessness of all those years of prayer, Melody said, “Chip, why don’t you see if you can find anything that might help us on the internet”. I plugged “infertile.com” into a search engine and – boom! – answered prayer began to unfold. Up popped that doctor in St. Louis. He had become one of the foremost authorities on infertility in the world. His name is Dr. Sherman Silbur. On his office wall when we first visited, we found a Hebrew prayer that spoke of “the holy work of healing the work of Your hands, O God”. We knew we were in the right place – at the right time.

God miraculously provided money through family, through our jobs, and in other ways. We went to St. Louis three times. We suffered one heartbreaking miscarriage, but finally became pregnant and were blessed with our first child – a girl – in 2001.

We were so happy.

I began to pray for a return to St. Louis in 2002. Financially, it was impossible. Melody was staying home with the baby and so our income was all on me. My job situation had changed and I wasn’t making as much as I was before. But I faithfully prayed that the Lord would allow us to return to St. Louis for the completion of our family. We had some frozen embryos there waiting for us to return and give them their opportunity to be. This weighed heavily on us.

I decided to go on prayer walks as often as possible with a “return to St. Louis” to “rescue our embryos” at the top of my prayer list. I decided to keep track of how many miles I walked in prayer for this need.

I logged 764 miles of prayer walks over the next five years or so - the exact distance between our house in North Carolina and the hospital in St. Louis. The final three miles were actually walked in the neighborhood of our hotel back in St. Louis! God made a way.

Along with the many prayer walks, I had begun to fast in various ways. There were the traditional 24-hour food fasts. But I also fasted sweets for weeks at a time (that was hard). I fasted chocolate for nearly fourteen months and had my first chocolate about an hour after my son was born. I wrote songs to prop up my faith: “Your Love O Lord Is Great”, “Unlikely” and “This Child Will Be” were some of the more notable ones.

I also poured out drink offerings to the Lord throughout the year leading up to my son’s birth. These were very solemn times before the Lord. I poured out drink offerings on riverbanks, by a lake or two in the mountains, in special places between the Lord and I – places where He had blessed me throughout my years following Him. I even poured out a drink offering on the grounds of the hospital where I expected our child to be born – there I was on my knees, whispering prayer and keeping a lookout for hospital security. I prayed such crazy, passionate prayers - especially throughout the year leading up to my boy’s birth.

And now he’s turning one year old.

God is faithful.

Just moments after he was born I spoke this scripture over him – from Revelation 15:3, I think – “Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty”.

So celebrate with us and lift up a prayer, if you will, for Melody and I and for the children God has given us.