For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16
Gabriel, you are surrounded by miracles.
When your mother, Sarah, was born, prematurely as you were, she did not breathe, her tiny body tinged with blue. The only prayer I could offer at that moment was, “Please, God.” In the months to come, we learned that untold numbers of believers had been praying with me, for me, for your Mother, and her Mother as we struggled through the pregnancy.
The miracle of all those prayers, the miracle of competent doctors and nurses in the delivery room that early October morning thirty years ago, gave your Mother her life.
When your Dad called to tell us that your Mother was being taken to hospital by ambulance, my heart began again the prayers that pleaded with God for a life not yet born. The doctors expected you to be born that very day, nearly three months early. Somewhere your first hours in hospital, a miracle of time was given to you, to your Mother, to us all. As the days wore on, our prayers rose to the Father that you would be born healthy and without complications when the day came.
Gabriel, you struggled for your breath. Like the night your mother was born, we pleaded for the simple act of breathing. On that first day of your life, you worked so hard to do what we all do with no thought.
The respirator was being prepared to breathe for you so you would not exhaust yourself trying.
Before your brother, Caleb, and your sister, Annie, were born, I gave them each a diptych, two small icons joined together, one of our Savior, the other of his Mother, Mary. I gave one to you as we waited for you to be born. It was in your Mother’s hospital room when you were taken to intensive care. As we were leaving her room to see you, I took the diptych to put with you. We hung it above your oxygen tent as the physician’s assistant told us that unless your following report was better, you would be placed on a respirator, something she expected to have to do.
She returned with the report, expressing her surprise that you were doing better and no respirator now, or ever if things continued to improve. As your Mother and I watched you, we saw that your breathing improved. You struggled less to draw in the life-giving air and were, to our eyes, resting. We looked at the diptych of the Savior and his Mother, exchanged glances with each other, and thanked the Savior for what had just taken place.
We know that our Lord was with you from the moment you were conceived. We know he was with you throughout all the time in the womb and after you were born.
We know these things, but the miracle signaled by the diptych placed over you was a blessing for which we give thanks without trying to comprehend what our eyes beheld. It reminded us of the miracle of prayers, competent doctors, physician’s assistants, nurses, and others who we will never know.
Gabriel, you, like all whom God loves, are surrounded by miracles.
A thanksgiving offered to God for the birth of Gabriel Gene Cummer from his grandfather, Pr. Gary Hatcher.