A Christmas Miracle

She will bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. Matt.1:21, NKJV. TUBERCULOSIS WAS killing 23-year-old Eleanor Munro. Physicians had tried everything and give up hope.Her husband had TB when he returned from overseas after world War ll, but before it was detected and having no immunity against the disease, she caught it. It lodged in an almost impossible place to treat-the lower lobe of her lung.

The only treatment was for the TB cavity to be forced shut so nature could have a chance to heal it by letting the sides grow together. If it had been in the upper lobe, ribs could have been removed to collapse the lobe, but her body needed the lower ribs for support. They considered removing the lung, but Eleanor was too sick to withstand surgery.

When Dr. MacDougall told Eleanor that there was nothing more they could do, she extracted a promise that if she were alive on Christmas Eve, she be allowed to go home. He promised, but only because he was sure she would be dead by them. But she wasn’t so with warning to not hold her child and to wear a surgical mask, she was taken home by ambulance. She came back to the hospital the following night, and her health continued to slip until she could no longer feed herself. But she refused to die.

Toward the end of February, she was down to 80 pounds when new complications set in. she became nauseated and began to vomit, even without food in her stomach. After examining her, a specialist asked if she could be pregnant. Impossible! How could her dying body have conceived? How could it support another life? But the test was positive. Aborting the child wasn’t an option; she was so weak the procedure could have killed her. Then an amazing thing happened: she began to get better. By late March, her temperature was coming down.

A chest x-ray showed that the growth of the TB cavity had stopped; her diaphragm was pushing up against lower lobe of her diseased lung to make room for the growing child. The child was saving the mother! What science couldn’t do, God did through the miracle of a child! The greatest miracle of all is ours through another Baby, God’s son Thank you, Jesus.

Based on the article "Christmas Miracle” by Dr. Joseph A. MacDougall, As told to Douglas How, reprinted in Woman of spirit, December 1999.

Yes You Can

Forty years ago, there lived a preacher and civil rights activist named Martin Luther King (Jnr). He stirred the hearts of people everywhere with his I-have-a-dream speech. He dreamed of a world where men would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character; where people, irrespective of gender, race or religion would have the equal right to lead. At the time, his dreams seemed far-fetched; many couldn't conceive it but his dream lived on.

He was only two years old when King shared his dream with the world. He didn't know it then but he was the fulfillment of that dream. From a remote part of the world, raised by a single mum and later by his grandmother, he understood the challenges of racial discrimination first hand; he knew what it was to be disadvantaged because of the color of his skin, the pains of growing up in poverty and lack, and the struggle to stand out in the world with the odds stacked against him. Still, like King, he dreamed.

He dreamed that he would one day lead the world's greatest nation; that he would transcend the racial divide, conquer the steep and biased political terrain and overcome tremendous obstacles to become an icon of hope to his world. And against all odds, he prevailed.

On the fourth of November 2008, Barack Obama made history as the first African-American President of the United States.

America's 44th president, Obama is the ultimate embodiment of not just the American dream but the ideal that guides success and achievement in life - IF YOU CAN CONCEIVE IT, YOU CAN ACHIEVE IT.

Yes, you can!