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Many
years ago, the Lord gave us a blessing in the form of a baby
girl. Her name is Shauna. Shauna was born mentally handicapped and it
was
through this little girl that we gained much spiritual strength. It was
through Shauna that her daddy accepted Christ’s church.
Pete came from a very strong family background in the Church of Christ.
His grandfather and two uncles were ministers in that
denomination. I on the other hand was reared in Christ’s restored
church. One of the
things that we agreed on when we were married was that we wanted God to
be an influential part of our lives. We promised that we would
work
toward being united on one faith. As the first few years passed,
it seemed that no matter how hard we tried our religious discussions
always
ended in an argument. It soon became easy not to discuss religion, and
then even easier to stay home on Sundays.
In 1969, Shauna was born. We never fully understood what took
place
in our lives at her birth, but it seemed that with her birth we stopped
arguing about religion and started to solve our problem. Three
years later we had both grown considerably. Pete had become
very active in the church and was willing to do almost anything for the
people of the district. In fact we were the Congregation’s youth
leaders. Cottage meetings were held in our home. And yet, there
was
something which held him back from baptism. “I’m just
waiting
for proof,” he would say.
In 1972, Shauna needed open heart surgery. We were
told
that the risks were much greater for Shauna than they would be for a
normal
child because she might not have the willpower to be weaned off
of the ventilator. Without the surgery Shauna might not live beyond the
age
of seven. We put our faith in God and we asked him for His
blessing. On October 29, 1972, as they took Shauna to surgery,
I asked Shauna’s angel to “get in the hospital bed with Shauna and
to not leave her for any reason.”
The surgery went well. Our little three year old was moved to
ICU. There is no way to express the feelings we had as we entered
Shauna’s
room
and saw our little girl lying on the bed. Everywhere we looked
were
tubes, in her nose, in her arms and legs, and three coming out of her
chest
which was covered with a large bandage.
There was nothing we could do but slip our hands under the oxygen tent
and hold her little hand. We could only be with her for 10
minutes
at a time then we would sit in the waiting room for the next two hours
anxiously waiting for the time of our next visit. This continued for
the
rest of the day and on into the night. The doctor told us that
Shauna
was doing remarkably well and so at 12:30 A.M., we decided to take a
break
from the noisy waiting room and go out to our car to sleep.
When we returned to the ICU, we were met by a very distraught
doctor. “I have been looking for you! Something is wrong with Shauna!”
he
said. “I can’t explain it since she was doing so well. It acts like a
blood
clot but we do not see a sign of one. I’m afraid that we are
going
to have to do a second operation!”
Immediately, I thought about calling the Elders of the church to ask
for
administration for Shauna. I asked the doctor if her condition
was
serious enough to call for the Elders of our church “Yes,” he replied.
Fifteen minutes later Elder John Robison and Elder William
Crampton
were on their way to the hospital. They had approximately one
hundred
miles to drive. It was raining hard and we knew that the rain
would
delay their coming. We stood beside Shauna and watched, for
we knew that she was dying. There was nothing we could do but have
faith
and pray.
We forced ourselves to leave her side and go to the hospital
chapel. Here we both begged God not to take her from us. Then Pete
paused
and said, “Diana, maybe this is the proof I have been waiting
for.”
Suddenly I realized that in a city as large as Detroit there would be
other
elders. We checked the phone book and called a man named George
Mefferd. He was the only pastor who had his home phone listed in the
Detroit
phone
book. Fifteen minutes later we were filled with new hope as a man
we had never seen before walked through the hospital doors. In a
matter of minutes we were standing beside Shauna as this servant
of God anointed her head with oil and asked our Heavenly Father for a
blessing.
As he prayed for our small daughter, I was very much aware of the
angels
that were standing at the head of her bed.
When we left the room, we introduced ourselves to this good man
and
thanked him for coming. A complete peace had come over us and a
feeling
that all was well. Shortly thereafter the elders from our home
branch
arrived and they testified to us that at approximately the same time
that
Brother Mefferd was offering the blessing, the spirit impressed upon
Elder
John Robison that they should stop the car and pray for Shauna.
As we were visiting the doctor approached. “I just don’t
understand
it!” He said. “I do not know what made her turn for the
worse
and I do not know what made her get better. I just don’t
understand
it.”
Two months later Pete was baptized and a year later he was ordained to
the office of Teacher. We understood why little Shauna had gone
through
this ordeal. She had gone through it for her daddy.
How wonderful it is that God does not leave us room to doubt a
miraculous
blessing. A week later we wanted to call the Mefferds to thank
them
for opening up their home to us, but when we looked for his home phone
number we were unable to find it. We thought this strange and
checked every phone book that we could find in the entire hospital. We
never
found the book that contained Brother Mefferd’s telephone number. When
we asked the Mefferds about this later, Brother Mefferd offered
the
following explanation: “I thought it strange that you called me. I put
my name in the telephone book two years ago but the following
year
I had it removed!”
Shauna is now over 30 years old and has only a slight heart
murmur. The past years have been filled with many testimonies and
Shauna has
worked
in the lives of many people. There have been times when people
have testified that they had seen her talking with angels. Pete and I
both thank God for the testimony that came in the form of a
little baby girl. |
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