When my wife Norma told me that she was pregnant with our third child, I was not excited at all. There were so many things I felt we needed to sort out in our lives before having another child that the news did not appear to be good under the circumstances. So I kept silent. About one month into my wife’s pregnancy I was sitting in the living room of the two-bedroom apartment that we were living in at the time, watching secular TV while she was ironing some clothes. Suddenly, I heard the voice of the Spirit of the Lord coming from the inside of me saying, “You are going to have a baby girl and you are going to name her Carolina Cristina.” I was caught totally off guard. Those words were articulated so fast and yet so clear that it was humanly impossible for me to repeat them as they were spoken to me.

I jumped off my chair very excited and told my wife, “The Lord spoke to me and said that we are going to have a baby girl and her name is Carolina Cristina.” That did not seem to impress her, but I was bubbling for joy inside. There are no words that could possibly describe adequately the peace that took a hold of my being.

I remember how in the past I used to pray asking the Lord never to give me a daughter because I thought “girls were trouble”. Looking back I realize how selfish, narrow and compartmentalized my soul was. My mind was very comfortable with that kind of thinking because it left out of the picture very damaging facts to sustain its position. That kind of deceitful mind left out the following facts: that I was born of an admirable woman, that I was raised by my grandmother, an extraordinary human being, that I had two beautiful sisters and that I was married to a lovely hard working wife and mother. But that’s how the carnal mind operates. It can put the whole world in one basket with the exclusion of that which is subservient to its own interests. I thank God for his mercy and longsuffering toward me.

As time went on, I began to tell others the news about my baby girl. I recall how some of my fellow brothers in the Lord trying to prepare me for any disappointments warned me to be ready, just in case we had a boy instead of a girl. I was not persuadable. I was sold out to the fact that I was going to be the father of Carolina Cristina. I also remember how I used to go to Sears at the Tacoma Mall and as I walked by the racks of pink baby girl clothes I experienced the presence of the Lord and had “chicken bumps” all over me.

In the world the average outcome of and expectant mother to have either boy or girl is fifty percent, but not so with the Lord. With him the average is a hundred percent assurance that what he says is true. But then again, how else could it be with God that cannot lie? Numbers 23:19.

In the following months of my wife’s pregnancy I remember one instance in which I had a very puzzling dream. I dreamed that while driving on I-5 with my pregnant wife she began to have birth pains, so I had to pullover. In the dream I found myself helping her deliver a baby boy as she lied on the back seat of our 1983 light blue Celebrity. When I woke up I was greatly disturbed because I knew that the dream was from the Lord. So, I went to pray because I thought the Lord had some explaining to do. I asked Him, “How come you are showing me a baby boy when you said I was going to have baby girl?” I will never forget His answer. He said to me, “No Victor, this one is baby girl but if you have another child is going to be a baby boy.” What a great relief I had!

On the evening of May 25th 1987 my wife told me that the baby was coming. I became anxious and I wanted her to hurry up and get ready to go to he hospital but instead she started cleaning the apartment. I knew better, so I got out of her way. I was dressed, ready and tired. I lied down with my clothes on and fell asleep. While in bed I had another dream in which I saw my wife having our baby girl.

My wife had spent the whole night cleaning and getting ready. In the morning, finally, we headed to the hospital. After going through the admissions process my wife was admitted to the labor and delivery ward at Tacoma General Hospital. In the room the staff began to monitor my wife’s vital signs, contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. At one point the nurse and the doctor were in the room listening to the ultrasound. As they listened they commented to each other that it was going to be a baby boy because of the heartbeat. I kept my poise. I did not flaunt my faith in their faces by telling them how wrong they were in their prediction. I talked to the one that will forever live in the inside of me. I told the Lord in my heart, “I don’t care what they say, the Bible says that only you know the heart of man, you and I know that this is the heart of a girl.”

Shortly, after my intimate conversation with the Lord my wife was taken into the delivery room as I was handed a sterile gown and instructed to disinfect my hands. I was very, very excited. Then everything came to a stand still. There we were; my wife in delivery position, the doctor sitting on a stool waiting and me standing next to her. I prayed in silence for a different kind of delivery, a painless one as I remember how painful and stressful our second son’s delivery was. I had determined in my heart that this one was going to be different. Almost one hour had gone by, we could see the baby’s full head of hair, my wife had no pain and the baby had no rush to come into this world. In the meantime the doctor, still sitting on the stool, was playing with his fingers as if bored of waiting. Then he said very calmly, “If the baby doesn’t come out in ten minutes I’ll have to cut.” Again, I did not argue with him about his plans. I just spoke to the one that lives in my heart forever. I told the Lord, “You have ten minutes.” Before the ten minutes were over the doctor came up with this great idea, he told my wife, “Why don’t you scream like one of those karate fighters?” You know, whooooooaaaah! Well with the next push my wife screamed and the baby was out. He said, “It’s a girl!” I shouted, “Alleluia! Praise the Lord!” After cutting the umbilical cord and cleaning my girl, the doctor handed me her little fragile naked body. I lifted her up for my wife to see that it was a girl. I felt like the Lion King as I lifted my “cub” to the heavens.

This year our girl, Carolina Cristina, will turn eighteen. She has heard me many times sharing her coming into our lives and the miracle that the Lord performed in my heart. I cannot take credit for the gift of faith that the Lord imparted to me in believing him for my daughter. I am so appreciative and thankful for what the Lord did and especially to my heart. He knew that I was going to become his minister and as such he had to remove a handicap in me that I was not even aware of. It is amazing how comfortable as believers we live sometimes with the wrong kind of thinking. It is no surprise that King David in Psalm 36:9, speaking of the spirit of the new birth that we should receive, wrote inspired by the Holy Spirit, “For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see the light.”

Victor