Today’s Miracle Monday is one that we published in 2012, an experience from Brother Edison B. Abraham, a member of the Church in the Philippines.

Christmas is and always will be a special season for me. I was born to a Christmas-believing family, and Dad would always read to us the story of the very first Christmas from the Bible (Matthew 2 and Luke 2). He used to say that Jesus was not born on December 25, and I believed him, but we celebrated Christmas anyway because of the spirit of love and joy that it brought to the world.

It was early November 1957, and the cold Siberian wind started to blow. It meant only one thing for me: Christmas was just around the corner. Soon, Mama would be placing on our humble table a once-a-year holiday treat of slice bread, a spread of guava jelly, and hot chocolate. We would also be hanging on our window a lighted, DIY Christmas lantern. And perhaps Daddy would be home to put up a Christmas tree.

The thought excited me as I walked home from school that day, but along the way, my legs started losing their strength. My classmate had to support me all the way home. I was already burning with fever when I opened the gate. Mama, the ever-strong-willed woman, prepared some home remedies to ease my fever, and she put me to bed.

Dad got home a day later, and my condition worsened. I could not walk because I was so stiff, and I could not talk because my jaws were locked. Dad suspected tetanus and looked me up for wounds. I had none, but I had an infected tooth.

That night, I was rushed to San Lazaro Hospital. I was dying. I was placed on the tetanus ward in a hurry and was given injections and an IV. I had my eyes closed because everything around me was a blur and I felt out of breath.

Oxygen was very costly and we couldn’t afford it, so Dad supplied my air with a hand-fan. All night, he fanned with one hand and held a Bible in his other. I could hear him praying softly and encouraging me to hang on. There were no tears in his eyes — just strength and faith.

The ward where they confined me was popularly known as the death ward. Fatality was very high in those days. When you contract tetanus, death is certain. As I was being taken in on a stretcher, two orderlies were also taking out someone covered up with a white sheet. Two or three more were carried out that night.

Dad and Mom were greatly worried, I knew. But what they didn’t know was the resolve of their little boy to come out of that ward alive and walking. In silence, I called to someone I only knew as God. And I made a wish: Please let me go home for Christmas.

Was I in delirium? No, I was not. The warmth and the assuring feeling that overwhelmed me at that very moment were all too real. It said to me, you will be home for Christmas.

Three weeks after I was taken in dying, I walked out stiffly into the corridors of death ward. The doctors and nurses beamed, clapped, and cheered for death ward’s miracle boy. On the night of December 24, I sat with my family and partook of the simple noche buena (midnight meal) that Mama prepared. I was home for Christmas.

Was my second chance at life truly a miracle? Yes, it was. The hand of God reached into that grim and fearful place one lonely night all because of the faith of a father and the innocent wish of a dying boy.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.