Sent by Alice Hoo • Mar 26, 2023

By the end of 2018, after praying for the direction of my life, I decided to resign from my full-time employment, preparing myself to be homemaker. It was a most difficult decision to make. However, after tendering my resignation, I felt relief and peace. I did not expect what I was about to go through in the following year but God already saw what I would experience.

Sure enough, in January 2019, I had my first miscarriage just after a few weeks of pregnancy. The news broke our hearts. I took a few months to recuperate and to heal. I thank God that my husband, Yew Yi spent a lot of time to accompany me during my recovery phase. By September, we received good news, I was pregnant! To our disappointment, the pregnancy turned into miscarriage again after a few weeks. The incident again broke our hearts. I felt so lost and was wondering why it was not what we desired despite our unceasing prayers. That was a most challenging time for us.

During my recovery period after my second miscarriage, I took time to ponder and reflect rather than haste into trying to conceive again. I earnestly sought the Lord for His guidance. And one night during the usual prayer time with my husband, I felt the Lord impressed upon my heart for an answer, “Rise up and fight (to pray earnestly), because the holy seed that you conceive will going to shake the kingdom of darkness.” I was led to read Psalm 127: 4-5 and Revelation 12:17. I was puzzled with what I heard. Hence, I sought counsel from my husband and my accountable prayer partner for more clarity and understanding.

I begin to fast and pray earnestly. During my fast, I thanked God that He surfaced the bondages which were entangling my life. This included the generational bondages (ancestral worship, occultic practices of involving fortune telling and mediumship) in my family. In addition, I began to have vivid dreams at night that revealed what I needed to pray for. In one of my dreams, God pointed out a photo album I needed to throw away. I took heed of the message and searched for this album. To my surprise, I found that I kept many photos from my childhood which included the ones when I was dedicated at the idol altar. I had forgotten about those moments but not God, He saw them.

Two months later after my fast has ended, I continued to wait upon the Lord for His timing in granting us children. On 12 March, 2020, I was just about to open my bible to begin my daily devotion, and this verse leaped up to me before my eyes.

“About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.” 2 Kings 4:16

I silently prayed and ask God not to allow me to feel the disappointment again as I had just recovered from both the miscarriages, and I took this verse in my heart. The next day, I felt very nauseous and unwell. I remembered the verse I received the day before, hence, I took the pregnancy test and Hallelujah! it was positive. After we got the confirmation from my gynaecologist, I thanked God for His Word came into reality.

During week eight of my pregnancy, after we confirmed hearing our baby’s heartbeat, we asked God for a name for our baby. That same night, God spoke in my dream, for we are to name “him” as Jonathan (a Hebrew’s name meaning ‘God has given’). Although we did not know the gender of the baby, through this dream, we begin to pray by faith for our baby boy. Lo and behold, we gladly received the news through the prenatal check-up in week 14 that indeed it was a baby boy! Again, I witnessed the faithfulness of God. It is a baby boy just as He revealed in my dream.

Fast forward to today, our son Jonathan is almost three years old and just began going to school. Each night when we pray for him, I marvel at the goodness of God. We are truly grateful that Jonathan came to our lives. God is so faithful and real to both of us. In the coming days, we will share this testimony with our son, let him know how he came on into this world, simply because God loves us, and He is faithful. God remembers His promises and His covenant with us and He will bring it to pass just as He has said so.