The following is the birth story of one of our book’s contributors, Deanna. She received a beautiful Christmas gift this past year. I adore this story. It teaches so many important truths. I hope you love it too. (Please be aware that the first paragraph of this story contains a loss.) -Lani
The Miracle of Forgiveness
By Deanna
“For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him.” -1 Samuel 1:27
We had found out we were pregnant Christmas 2011. We were very excited because we had been trying for months even though we’d had no fertility problems conceiving our other two children. Then we miscarried. When I went to see my OB, the nurse asked when I had had a positive pregnancy test. I said, “Christmas morning.” She expressed sympathy and then the words, “You will have that same baby in your arms by the following Christmas,” came into my mind.
Later, I realized that the reason I had miscarried and also the reason I was having trouble getting pregnant was because I was holding a grudge against someone who had deeply offended me. I could not let it go and started to have anxiety attacks and depression. I prayed to be able to forgive her, but I couldn’t reconcile between forgiveness and being taken advantage of by her.
In order for the revelation to be fulfilled (me having that baby by Christmas) I had to conceive late March/early April. That just so happened to be General Conference weekend and “coincidentally” I was also ovulating. Most of the talks were about forgiveness. All along I knew I had to forgive her, but I didn’t know how to do that. During Conference and especially Pres. Monson’s closing remarks, I knew exactly what I had to do. I resolved to do it and sort of made a deal with the Lord that if I did it and forgave her that I would be able to conceive.
We did conceive, and my due date was Dec. 21. I had been late with my other two, so I wasn’t sure that I would even have the baby by Christmas. I started to wonder if the revelation was just “Christmas time.” On the night of Dec. 23 with no real contractions and me feeling very anxious, my husband gave me a blessing. In it he said, “The Lord will fulfill His promises to you.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I had faith that he would be born on the perfect day for him.
My contractions (that really let me know “this was it”) started at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. Our son was born on Christmas day at 1:25 p.m. The Lord indeed fulfilled His promise to me.
There truly is no better “gift” to open on Christmas day. How beautiful!