As I dropped off Cheri at the red line area, I stayed in the car with my son Sean while Cheri, my second daughter, walked to the hospital where she was born 23 years ago. Cheir had always looked forward to this moment when she could visit the hospital of her birth.

Cheri was our first child after my wife and I converted to Christianity. Before our conversion, we both believed in Taoism and Buddhism back in Taiwan. Since our first child was a girl, we expected our second child to be a boy, reflecting a traditional and conservative mindset prevalent in Taiwanese society, even though we were Christians at the time. I was very naive and self-centered, focusing mostly on my own interests. I assumed that God would answer my prayers for whatever I desired because He loves me and gives me what I ask for. Ah, how pitiful and selfish I was to claim to be a Christian while holding such beliefs!

When I discovered that our second child was a girl, I felt a deep disappointment and questioned God as to why He didn’t give me what I had prayed for—a boy. However, as I spent time in prayer with the Lord, I came to rejoice in the spiritual lesson He wanted to teach me: to seek His will rather than my own desires. I learned that His ways are higher than my ways, and His will is greater than mine.

Thanks be to God, who forgives all our sins as long as we genuinely repent and seek His forgiveness. I experienced His mercy poured out upon me. Two weeks before my wife went into labor, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to know when our second child would be born. I told my wife that two weeks from then, on Thursday night, the child would arrive. My wife was skeptical of my “prophecy,” but she still made preparations for the child’s arrival.

Indeed, on that Thursday evening, just as I returned from school, my wife began to experience labor pains and asked me to take her to the hospital. Our child was born early the next morning, and I was fortunate to be by my wife’s side during the entire process.

On the morning our child was born, God’s word came to me from Psalm 8: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” I realized that God truly cares for His creation, even for someone like me, a sinner. In that moment, the name “Cheri” came to me, and I felt she should be named “Cheri.” When I looked up the name in the dictionary, I found that it means “beloved.” Indeed, Cheri is God’s beloved child, a testament to His love and care for us.