Friday, December 13

December 13th, 2024
by Barry Milligan

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child,
and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah,
but his mother spoke up and said,
“No! He is to be called John.”

They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”
Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He
asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is
John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to
speak, praising God. … Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking,
“What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him. - Luke 1: 57-66

I married my love Yvonne, on December 29th, 1971. We had a few days together
before I had to report back to duty at Keesler AFB. She joined me a few weeks
later. One day Yvonne told me she was pregnant. I was thrilled and scared, after all
I was just an airman. Unfortunately, we lost the child, it was a boy. As time went
by we again were given the hope that we were going to have a child and again we
lost the baby. Over the years we lost two more.

In May of ’73, I spent a year at a remote site in Alaska. I was then assigned to Point
Arena AFS in California. We traveled across country and settled into our new
residence. After a time she again was pregnant. We quickly went to a doctor and
told him about all we had been through. Again, we lost the child. We were
devastated.

Shortly thereafter, Yvonne was having ‘problems’ and we went back to our doctor.
He told us that she was pregnant and that the first miscarriage was a boy and he
might have been a twin. Again, we were given instructions on what to do to protect
the fetus. She was put on bed rest and told to do nothing strenuous. We went back
and forth to the doctor for the next seven months with her staying in the hospital on
several occasions.

One night the stress caught up to me and while driving home late at night I prayed
that this would end. God listened to my prayer but ended it in His own way. Like
Zechariah I doubted but, God had different plans. We had a beautiful baby girl and
two years later another.

God blesses believers.
Barry Milligan

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Posted in Advent24