Ashley's
anencephalic Story

            Then another of God’s precious servants entered our lives.  She was the wife of one of my co-workers. Although we were already good friends, this night meant so much to us.  We will always remember it. She wanted to plan a supper for us.  She wanted to have people we were close to come and share how our experience had affected them.  I was scared to death and had never done anything like this before.  I didn’t know what people were going to say.  How does one experience that?  You can’t unless you have been there. 

We gathered at her parents home and had a wonderful supper.  Then we all sat around that talked about the things that we were going through, how our experience was affecting them, what they could do to help us and other things like this.  There was plenty of crying and heart ache at the gathering that night.  We had people from all over come.  There were probably 20 to 30 people that night.  Everyone there expressed encouragement to us to keep on walking with the Lord, even though we were sad and discouraged.  They were all praying for us.  Never in my life had I encountered anything like this.  This was truly on of the miracles that God performed in our lives.  I never imagined that our decision to carry the pregnancy had affected so many people.  I thought this was going to be a situation that Pam and I would face together with a few family members.  Yet, here people were telling us how our problems had made their faith stronger.

There were also many prayers offered that night.  I have never had the feeling before of being held before the Lord on so many prayers.  It was unbelievable.  To know that you have hundreds, yes that is correct, hundreds of people praying for you.  It makes you feel awfully small in the order of God’s universe.  To know that people care that much about you.  My mind displayed Pam and I floating on clouds that were held up by the hands of those who prayed.  It seemed like people were gently nudging us closer to the heart of God.  So many different people were praying for us.  People that prayed for us include: all of our relatives; my employer and coworkers; a lot of people in the local churches; a entire home school group in Kalamazoo.  And these are the only the ones that I can remember.  It was incredible, yet incredible does not begin to describe it.