Every family carries stories that explain who they have become. Some are joyful. Some are painful. A few reveal, only after many years, the quiet providence of God weaving through generations. This is one of ours.
My father was born in 1929, born the youngest of three sons, and the sixth of seven children born into the marriage of Earnest Clifton Cross and Rosalie Heaton Cross.
As a child, I have many fond memories of my father’s oldest brother, my uncle Richard and his wife, aunt Dot, who lived in the same town where my grandmother lived. Aunt Dot was warm and engaging with all my young cousins and me and it was obvious that she loved and appreciated children.
One afternoon after eating cookies and playing a child’s card game with her at her house, I asked Aunt Dot why she had never had any children of her own. She gave me a medical explanation that I did not understand at the time but I did grasp that some early childhood medical condition had caused Uncle Richard to be infertile so they had never been able to have children.
What I did fully understand, through the eyes of a child, from that brief conversation with my aunt was that this childless state was “the greatest regret of her life” and that it had caused her a lot of anguish and heartache over the years. Becoming aware of her pain is probably the reason this conversation stuck with me through the years.
Many, many years later I asked my father about what had happened to Uncle Richard to cause his infertility. He explained that Richard had had an undescended testicle from birth. Although he didn’t seem to know much more about the issue than that, my later reading taught me that the condition is not uncommon today and, if left untreated, can sometimes lead to infertility and increase the risk of later disease. I understood then why Richard and Dot had carried such quiet sorrow through their marriage.
I lay this backstory because only a small handful of people actually know it and because it is, in part, my story to tell.
Our oldest son, David, was born healthy in April 1989, and we rejoiced greatly in his birth. During a routine check-up that year, our pediatrician mentioned that one of David’s testicles had not descended properly but that it probably would descend naturally before his first birthday, as often happens in such cases. We prayed persistently and watched closely for that to happen all that year.
Fast forward to March 1990, one month before David’s first birthday. We had waited until the eleventh hour, but finally had succumbed to the necessity for surgery.
As a young mother, the news the doctor delivered to us after the surgery explaining that they had discovered that the undescended testicle had failed to develop properly and they had had to remove it was devastating.
Nevertheless, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and rejoiced in our delightful busy little boy as he continued to grow and awe us at every stage of development. Soon, life was followed by the birth of David’s two younger brothers, and life became busier than it had ever been.
But that event, in that moment of time, seared into my memory, marked a silent pilgrimage of prayer that would last for the next 26 years and would ultimately culminate in the highly anticipated birth of our lovely granddaughter, Shiloh Isabella, in November of 2015. Some prayers are answered quickly. Others become companions for decades. Mine began in a hospital room when David was not yet a year old.
Throughout the duration of that quarter-of-a-century prayer pilgrimage, I was often on my knees in the still darkness of the night, praying without ceasing for all of the boys and specifically for God’s protection over David’s seed.
David was just 23 years old when he and Chelsea got married in June of 2012. We were then, and have continued to be in the ten years since then so blessed by this young woman who has become like our own daughter in our hearts and in our family. Two years later when David and Chelsea announced to us their sudden, unexpected, and “unplanned” pregnancy, David was not entirely confident that he was quite “ready” to be a dad.
While that is entirely normal and completely understandable, I am reminded through this story that man is not the center of the Universe, that God is the Creator and Giver of Life, that His ways are far above our ways, and that His plans for us are always perfectly right and perfectly on time. We can make our plans but it is the LORD who directs and establishes our steps (Proverbs 16:9).
I don’t know if I have the ability to use words to adequately express the depth of gratitude that I felt in that moment, at that time, or the overflow of thanksgiving that I have continued to experience in the seven years since Shiloh’s birth. I comprehended afresh the depth of the miracle of life that had been granted to us all. I experienced the lovingkindness of our LORD in all the capacity my human heart could contain. The only appropriate response to this epiphany was to worship Him, and we did.
Let me just say this. Life itself, in all its forms, is a miracle. The birth of every child is a miracle. While I fully acknowledge that, the birth of this child was our miracle in a specific time in history. As with every child born on earth, the Creator designed, formed, and purposed their creation and formed their life within their mother’s wombs.
Shiloh was not conceived because of my prayers over the years. I do not believe my prayers persuaded God to do what He had already purposed to do. Rather, I believe He graciously invited me to participate in His providence. That is one of the quiet mysteries of prayer. We ask, He ordains, and somewhere beyond our understanding He weaves both together for His glory and our good.
The following year, when David called us to ask us to meet with them, that they had something to tell us, Keith and I were ecstatic, hoping that they would tell us that they were pregnant again. But when we walked into their living room that cold day in December, we knew something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong. As a result of a swollen testicle, David had had some lab tests run. The tests had come back conclusively. His doctor told him that he had testicular cancer, that they needed to do surgery immediately. We were all stunned. They made several attempts to collect sperm for future progeny but it was already too late. All efforts failed.
The weeks (and months) that followed were a medical and emotional nightmare in a lot of different ways. Confusion. Exhaustion. Fear. Hormone treatments. Adjustments. I don’t think I have to explain it in detail. In our own ways, we all walked through the human grieving process necessary when mourning great losses.
But eventually, things began to be re-threaded, routines became calmer, life settled down to a new reality. We all worked through it to make sense of what had happened and to get to the other side. And, life went on, as it inevitably does in spite of human trauma.
We were grateful that they had managed to contain all the cancer. David and Chelsea made the life adjustments; they did the hard work to overcome. Shiloh continued to grow and develop and to bring great joy to everyone. And we continued to give thanks and worship the King of Kings and the LORD of Lords.
Like all stories, this story winds on like a swift-moving river, taking twists and turns that take it out-of-sight sometimes. I don’t know where it is going or what it holds around the next bend. I only know that this part of the story deserved to be told, the time to tell it seemed to be today, and so, I have told my part as concisely and as truthfully as I could.
Looking back now, I can see that this story was never simply about infertility, or cancer, or even the birth of a beloved little girl. It is about the quiet faithfulness of God across generations. It is about prayers whispered in the dark that became our family’s inheritance. It is about remembering, because remembering is one of the ways gratitude takes root.