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You're wrestling through tears and issues of gratitude and blame and suffering—and you now have a choice to make after Hope's death. Because of the genetic code, you know that you have a 25 percent chance of another child having Zellweger.

We didn't know that, of course, before Hope, but then we knew.

And you made a decision that you wanted another child?

Well, no. We decided that we couldn't take that risk. We just didn't feel like we could risk putting our son and our parents through such a sorrowful experience again. And so we made a choice and we took surgical steps to prevent a future pregnancy.

And then I found out I was pregnant about a year and a half later. And to say that we were shocked would be an understatement. But we weren't just shocked, we were afraid. We were afraid of what it would be like to love and lose another child.

But at the same time we felt this cautious sense of joy—we had 75 percent chance of having another healthy child. And then that same geneticist who had come into our room on Hope's second day of life and delivered that bitter news to us that she would live only a short time called and said the results are positive. This child will also have Zellweger Syndrome.

Was that day darker than any you'd previously had?

No, it wasn't. In those eight weeks between the time I learned that I was pregnant and got those test results, we did a lot of reckoning. As we waited for that phone call we prepared in a sense for the worst news. To be honest, the most profound sense we had was just a sense that the circumstances were so amazing. We just had this deep sense that God was at work. If he has allowed us to get pregnant, and if this is another child with Zellweger Syndrome, he must have something very significant he wants to do in and through us.

You chose the name Gabriel.

We chose the name thinking about the angel Gabriel, I think partly because every time Gabriel appeared in the Bible he reassured whoever he was speaking to, he said, don't be afraid. And to head into this a second time was scary.

During Gabe's life I studied each of those three times Gabriel appeared in. And the first was back in the Old Testament to Daniel. And he comes, you know, Daniel has had this dream and the angel Gabriel says, I've come to give you insight and understanding. And he revealed to them the future redemption of God's people, which includes the coming of The Anointed One, Jesus.

Then Gabriel comes to Zechariah in the temple to tell him that his wife is pregnant and that she'll have a son, John the Baptist. And then Gabriel comes again, of course, to Mary and tells her that she's going to give birth to the very son of God. And when I saw that I just see that Gabriel's message was always the same. It's Jesus.

Don't be afraid of the future. Jesus is coming.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit DickStaub.com for audio and video of his radio program (4-7 p.m. PST), media reviews, and news on "where belief meets real life."; The full text of this interview will be for sale on the website soon.

Earlier Dick Staub Interviews include:

Stephen L. Carter | The Yale University law professor and author of The Emperor of Ocean Park talks about the lack of religious characters in modern fiction (Sep. 3, 2002)

Francine Rivers | The fiction writer says she starts each book with a question that she doesn't know the answer to. God provides the ending. (Aug. 27, 2002)

Ben Heppner | The acclaimed dramatic tenor speaks about getting into opera, his faith, and P.O.D. (Aug. 20, 2002)

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September (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46