Do you have a favorite family story from your childhood, perhaps from so far back that you don’t remember the event, only the accounts told to you by family members? My father used to tell a story about an answered prayer dating back to when I was a year and a half old, long before I remember. He sometimes referred to it as a miracle. I hadn’t thought about the story in a long time, but years after my father passed away, I found an unmarked manila envelope while helping my mother clean out the family home before she moved into an apartment. I opened the envelope and found a priceless treasure—a sermon handwritten in faded pencil on faint green graph paper; the paper Dad always used as an engineer. The date on the sermon was 8/11/63. From the context, I could tell it was a sermon he wrote to say goodbye to his beloved church congregation at the United Church of Christ in Bayberry, New York, before he moved his family to the Utica area.
My oldest sister, Liz, who remembers proudly sitting in the congregation while Dad preached the sermon, filled me in on details. She said our family used to walk to the small church startup, which met in a house. My parents had moved around the country several times while my father was on a training program for the General Electric Company. When he took his first position in Syracuse, they bought a new house in a development and moved in with their two little girls, hoping this would be their forever home, neighborhood, and church family. They added two more daughters to their family while they lived there, but six years after they moved in, GE had major layoffs, and Dad was forced to take a job at the Utica GE plant and relocate the family.
The sermon was based on my father’s favorite hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” One of the illustrations he used was the story he used to tell me about an answered prayer when I was a baby. What a precious gift! I had the story written down and preserved by my dad himself! I invite you to join me as I revisit a life-changing moment in my personal and family history. I hope it will encourage you. Here is the story:
“Blest Be the Tie That Binds”
An excerpt from an unpublished sermon
by Clayton C. Brewer, dated 8/11/63
My wife contracted mononucleosis and was bedridden for a couple of months. Three of the children caught chickenpox. My youngest child had chickenpox pneumonia. My wife and youngest child both required hospitalizations. The women of this church and the neighbors gave assistance that we will be eternally grateful for. Instead of my coming home from work and having to prepare supper as well as take care of accumulated work for the day, someone brought in a casserole for the evening meal for a period of three weeks.
While Nancy had chicken pox, her fever went up. Despite alcohol baths, aspirin, and cold compresses, it still went up. The doctor had us rush her to the hospital. During this time, I was working, and I had sick people at home and the regular housework to do. I could not spend much time at the hospital. The fever went down the second day, but that evening, I went away from the hospital chilled—our daughter, to me, seemed not to act normal. She appeared to act as a whipped puppy would. She would cling to me, and I could not get her to talk.
The next day, the staff doctor wanted to see me. He started out with guarded questions, “Does she walk? Is she toilet-trained? Does she talk?” He was careful to explain that sometimes small children are unhappy in the hospital and pull a balk, but they were concerned that there may have been brain damage. You can imagine the burden I brought to my wife that night. Reverend Adams and myself spent a good part of that night with God in prayer. I was prepared to accept God’s will.
The next morning, I was excused from work. I went to the hospital, bringing Nancy’s toys, books, her sisters’ pictures, and other familiar items. I logged her progress. It was disheartening because I would get little response. All she would do was cling to me and whimper. Gradually, she took an interest, and then, miraculously, the response improved. I went through the entire list and was confident that she was OK. We had our own little girl back again!
I went to the phone and called my wife, and she said that Rev. Adams had prayed with her over the telephone and had just hung up. I’ll not try to interpret the facts but merely state that this experience has strengthened my faith.
*Background photo is my father, Clayton C. Brewer, my sister Liz, and me as an infant.