Everett Joseph Smith Was a Real Boy

While columnist Chuck Sigars takes a month off from blogging, he's asked guest bloggers to fill in for him. Today is my day. I got permission from Eerdmans to post one of the essays from my book over at his site. This essay has never been online before.

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The phone call came at night. Doesn’t it seem like they always do? I felt sick. I hung up the phone and turned to my wife. “John and Denise’s baby came.”
 
There was nothing to say, really. We sat there feeling horror and dread. “How far along?” she asked.
 
“Twenty-two weeks. A little boy, and he was alive.”
 
Her face fell. My wife is a chaplain. She spent years working labor and delivery, so she knows what twenty-two weeks means.
 
At twenty weeks, he would have been born dead. At twenty-five weeks he would have had a fighting chance. Twenty-two weeks is just old enough for the heart to beat but too young for the lungs to breathe.
 
Twenty-two weeks....

...click here to read the rest of this essay at The World According to Chuck.

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