12-21-07 Our brightest hopes -- Matthew 1:25
... she gave birth to a son ...
-- Matthew 1:25
This has become a special day for me because twelve years ago my son Alan was born. It was the shortest day of the year, but one of the longest days of my life. I woke up early, went to work, drove to Chicago and back (over 300 miles), got permanently laid off from my job, came home, drove my wife to the hospital, and, by the end of the day, my namesake, Dwight Alan Clough, Jr., was a little baby wrapped up in a blanket.
He seemed so fragile and small. During labor my wife's blood pressure spiked at 197/127 then dropped to 60/40. Meanwhile, I had lost my job on the darkest cold day of the year.
But that little six pound baby somehow hung on and grew. The doctor said my wife could never safely deliver another child, but two and a half years later God gave us our little Sally. My job was gone. Unemployment paid me for a month and then refused to pay any more. But God provided a living and we made it through.
Alan has my name, but he has much more than I could ever give him. He has a people savvy that can only be a gift from God because he certainly didn't get it from me. He is naturally street wise and sizes up situations better than some people twice his age. We call him our future millionaire because at age five he was watching the Nightly Business Report, and he told us his goal was to own fifty Taco Bell restaurants.
What's the point? The point is that good life sometimes flourishes on doubtful soil. The point is that God specializes in taking our darkest hours and drawing out of them our brightest hopes. Who could have guessed that the hope of the whole world could be found wrapped in cloth lying in a box over a bed of hay!
Be encouraged!
Dwight
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