The Most Significant New Year’s Event Our Family Ever Faced

Let me share with you something that happened to me on January 1st, 1984. The evening before, our little son Jeffrey Michael, was born at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, New York. The doctors and nurses knew that something was wrong, terribly wrong. Within the hour they notified us that the Buffalo Children’s Hospital ambulance and Intensive Care Unit team was on the way to transport him back to their hospital. He was in critical condition.

In the wee hours of the morning, I drove to Children’s Hospital. The Medical Director of the cardiology department met me in a private conference room. He had completed a heart catheterization of my fourteen-hour-old son. “Jeffrey is a complicated little boy,” he said. “We’ve seen all the problems with his little heart before. But we’ve never seen all the problems in one child who was alive. He’s a medical miracle.” Dr. Pieroni went on to write out the long list of Jeff’s heart complications. Here sitting with me was the Chief of Cardiology. He was so kind to me that New Year’s Day.

“I know that you are eager to be with your boy,” Dr. Pieroni continued. “But I have to warn you. While he did very well in the cath, we haven’t been able to get him settled down. I’m not sure that sedation is good for him, but he is really upset and blue. I just want to warn you,” he said as he led me to NICU that morning.

The nurses helped me to get scrubbed as well as gowned up. Many eyes were on me as I approached the sickest child in the entire unit that morning. Jeff was wailing and almost frantic. I reached in and took his hand. “Jeffrey, Jeffrey,” I quietly said, “it’s all right. Daddy is here. Jeffrey, Daddy is here,” I said. Quietly, I continued talking. Within seconds he stopped crying and settled right down. His little fingers wrapped around my finger as I talked with him.

There was a hush at his bedside. His nurse was the first to speak. “Michael, you’ve been talking to him before his birth, haven’t you? He obviously recognized your voice,” she said. While still quietly talking to Jeff, I shared with the medical team that every evening in the two months before his birth, Karen and I made sure he was awake. I would then read to him, quote Bible verses to him, and pray with him.

“He obviously recognized your voice” is the key to the story. It makes me think of what our Savior said to us. What a great way to begin the new year by remembering that He said, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:11, 14, 27). We read His Word, and this is His voice speaking to us. We recognize His voice. That’s why it is so important to read the Bible!

It was a special moment for me that day with my little boy who would be with us for a little over four years.  It is a special day every day to hear the Lord’s voice through reading His Word. We can trust Him. We can get to know Him better. We can discover daily the blessing of hearing His voice through the Word.

New Year’s Blessings to you dear friends.