Every day was a daily sacrifice for Leonard and Nancy Myers as they struggled to keep their son Shawn alive. Shawn suffered from the crippling affects of muscular dystrophy and pneumonia.

"I felt sorry for him," Nancy recalls. "I wanted him alive. But after I saw what he looked like, and being hooked up to all that, it makes you wonder - well, why would you want him alive?"

Doctors predicted he would only live 10 years. As his muscles slowly deteriorated, Shawn's legs became too weak to carry his weight and his lungs strained for every breath. By the age of 10, Shawn was barely hanging on to life.

"Each day his breathing was getting more shallow," says Leonard. "It was working on the muscles - that's how MS works.

Shawn was put on life support with no hope of returning home. The years of constant care and trips to hospitals drained the Myers family financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

"I resigned from my job," Leonard remembers. "And I didn't know what I was going to do. And my kids would say what now Dad? And Dad didn't know." With no income, and doctor bills piling up, the Myers discovered tragic news: Nancy was pregnant.

"I thought, I can't take care of another one," says Nancy, "because I didn't think I had the energy to take care of one. And I was sad that I was pregnant. "The doctors were saying, 'You don't want to have this. That child you're getting ready to have will be just like that boy laying there dying.'"

Doctors told them there was a 1 in 4 chance that this baby could also have muscular dystrophy. The Myers were devastated.

But was abortion the answer?

"The most profound thing in my mind, at that time," says Leonard, "was dealing with this from a spiritual application. The truth was I didn't want another child. We couldn't afford it. We were not emotionally up to it. We were dealing with a boy lying there dying. There were selfish reasons, there were practical reasons, and there were medical reasons, but we couldn't rule out the spiritual reasons. And I had always been taught that abortion is wrong."

Unfortunately, abortion seemed to be the only logical option, so the Myers scheduled an appointment.

But Leonard's soul stirred with unrest.

"I wanted somebody to say, 'God doesn't want you to do this.' Or I wanted somebody to say, 'God will think this is OK under these circumstances.'"

Time was running out. With only two days left before the scheduled abortion, Leonard decided to call someone he knew would tell him the truth. He called a 700 Club prayer counselor.

"She just gave me an honest answer," Leonard recalls. "'I don't know what I would do,' she said. 'I can only tell you what the Bible says.' And she took me to the 139 Psalm, where it tells about God knitting the baby together, even in the mother's womb, and forming it, and putting it together, and giving it all of its personality and parts. And she said that decision has to fall on you."

Today, their unborn baby has grown up to become a healthy teen-ager named Kendal.

And through his life the Myers have experienced God's abundant gifts and provision.

"God took care of everything!" Nancy says with joy. "Everything just fell into place, and to this day, he's just been a blessing."

And as for Shawn, he became the first child ever to leave Oklahoma City's Children's Memorial Hospital on a mobile life support system - allowing him to share another 11 wonderful years of love and hope with his family.

"In my heart, I think each person is here by Divine design," says Leonard. "I think God created each individual and He's given gifts and good things in life to everybody."

 

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