The third oldest of seven children, I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, at 7:11 a.m., weighed 7 lbs., 11 oz., was the seventh baby born that morning, and was born on the seventh floor of the hospital. My birth date is 7-17-57. My mother told me that there were a lot more sevens related to my birth, but she couldn’t remember them. She also told me that she thought that I would be her luckiest child due to all those sevens. After all, seven is God’s number. But as it turned out, I had more problems than all my siblings combined. Due to a birth defect on my brain, I dealt with quite a few physical challenges, and as a result of my physical problems, I was teased and bullied from my fourth through tenth grade of school.
And even though I didn’t receive Jesus into my heart as my Savior until age 17 (another seven), God had His mighty hand on my life.
My dad was in the Navy, so we traveled quite a bit. We’ve lived in northern Ohio and West Virginia. I started kindergarten in Cherry Point, North Carolina and attended elementary school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Then we moved back to Hawaii shortly before my ninth birthday. I attended 4th, 5th, and 6th grades in Hawaii. When I was about ten years old, we learned that a tidal wave was headed our way and island officials were evacuating. Everybody was leaving. Airplanes must have been jam-packed. But we weren’t packing. So I asked my mom about it.
“We don’t have the money to evacuate, Marjie. That would mean purchasing nine airplane tickets – two adults and seven children.”
“Then what’s going to happen to us?”
“We’ll have to stay here and take our chances.”
“Okay.” And I ran outside to play. I didn’t think about that tidal wave any more. The next time I thought about it, I was an adult with children of my own. It occurred to me that it never hit the island, so I asked my mother about it. She told me that it was headed straight toward us and at the very last second, it changed direction and crashed into the ocean.
That’s the power of God! Whether He turned it away from the island because of a ten-year-old girl who would trust Him as Savior in seven short years (another seven) or whether some of His children were praying, I don’t know. I just know that my physical life was spared and my eternity assured as a result of our merciful and all-powerful God.