Another birthday

Seven years ago yesterday our daughter Theresa was born unexpectedly 14 weeks early. Her original due date had been set for 10 February 1999, but she came into the world more than three months before then. Thank God she was born in a hospital with a level-3 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). There she remained for the first three and a half weeks of her life until she was out of danger, after which she was transferred to a hospital across town with a level-2 unit. Altogether she was in hospital for over 10 weeks. When she finally came home, she was still very small, weighing less than 5 pounds. It was a scary time for us, and I kept a huge number of people informed of her progress over email, asking for their prayers. At some point I intend to turn our experience into a book, but it is still not emotionally easy for me to reread those emails and my own personal journal entries from then.

Two sundays ago Nancy was in church talking with Susan, the director of the junior choir with which Theresa sang for just over a year. Nancy mentioned to her the upcoming birthday, and something clicked in Susan's head at hearing this information. It seems Susan was part of a Bible study back in 1998, and the group was asked to pray for a little girl who had been born early to a Redeemer professor and his wife. Only now was she putting two and two together.

Nancy told me about this when we were home, and I was deeply moved — as well as humbled at the ways of God — to learn that a woman we didn't even know at the time was among the many people praying for Theresa throughout those trying early weeks of her life.