Rev. Cynthia Palmer hosted two Christian radio programs in Zeeland, Michigan for two years. She focused on the news and interviewed extraordinary women. Cynthia is now an associate pastor at Grand Rapids First, a mega-church in Wyoming, Michigan.
Twenty-nine years ago, she was told that her daughter would be born with either spina bifida and/or anencephaly. The latter is an absence of major portions of the brain and skull. On a scale of one to ten, the baby was predicted to have a 9.3 probability of such malformations. Cynthia’s doctor advised a “therapeutic” abortion near term. But Cynthia would not even consider an abortion and decided “I will take what God gave me.”
Cynthia’s blood sugar levels notched the baby’s risk factor up to a 9.5. The verdict for the child being severely deformed was all but certain. With such odds, what could reverse the inevitable? Only prayer. Cynthia was a new believer in Christ, but she had enough faith to ask everyone she knew to pray.
The doctor scheduled Cynthia for an ultrasound to measure the baby’s organs and their vital function. Cynthia was warned that the results would horrify her. Surely she would be convinced to have an abortion! She was scheduled for the ultrasound in three weeks. Then, something amazing happened. The night before the ultrasound, an angel appeared to Cynthia in her bedroom. The angel was rocking a baby. The angel told her, “Do not fear. You are going to have a very healthy, normal child. Not only that, your child will be a world-changer. Your main mission in life is to get this baby to Earth.”
Immediately, Cynthia was filled with great peace and she slept for the first time in three weeks. The next day, she went to Northwestern Hospital in Chicago for the all-day procedure. At the end of the ordeal, the technician did something he wasn’t supposed to. Knowing that Cynthia must be worried sick from all she’d been told about her baby’s prognosis, he read the results to her before the doctor saw them. The technician showed her the images of the very healthy baby girl!
Cynthia says, “When my baby was born without the ‘inevitable’ deformities, she did have a huge scar across her back that she still has to this day where the Lord Jehovah Raphe [‘the God who heals’] laid His hand across her and healed her.” As is so often the case with scars many of us bear, they remind us of a victory or a miracle. Cynthia says this scar carries a special message: that her baby would become the world-changer the angel had spoken of! In fact, her daughter—who just gave birth, herself—now works in a pediatric neo-natal unit at Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital. She helps save the lives of countless newborns. Cynthia says that “by the world’s standards [these babies] would mostly have no hope but God!”
From God Is in the Crazy (with astounding miracles and reflections on the peaceful life), by Dr. Chet Weld. Printed by permission of Rev. Cynthia Palmer. God Is in the Crazy will be published in January, 2023.