Alex

As he was leaving for early-morning seminary, our teenage son, Michael, found one-year-old Alex in the living room, screaming, with his eyes tightly closed. A pair of sharp scissors lay in front of him.

Sensing that something was seriously wrong, Michael carried Alex to his mother, who was still in bed. She took him in her arms and tried to comfort him, but he kept screaming. I was on my knees saying my prayers in an adjoining room.

My wife became concerned and called to me. I quickly concluded my prayer and emerged from the small sewing room off the bedroom. Michael had by now told his mother about the scissors, and together we laid Alex down on the bed to look at his eyes.

Our hearts sank with dismay as we saw his damaged eyelid. Instinctively I grabbed him, held him close, then went into the sewing room and closed the door. There I poured out a plea to Heavenly Father to heal my son.

Immediately, Alex went limp in my arms. He stopped crying and seemed to fall asleep. For about a minute I prayed more fervently than I ever had in my life.

Then, not daring to think what I would see, I looked down. The protrusion was gone. A few seconds later, Alex opened his large, dark eyes and looked up at me. They were crystal clear. He gave me one of his happy grins.

Tears of joy flooded my own eyes. Opening the door, I went back into the bedroom to find my wife kneeling beside the bed, sobbing in prayer. I put Alex in her arms. “Heavenly Father has made him better,” were the only words I could manage.

Tearfully, she examined his eyes, then expressed her thanks to Heavenly Father. Alex wriggled out of his mother’s arms, climbed down off the bed, and trotted off, with no sign whatever of the injury he had suffered.

The whole incident could not have lasted more than a few minutes, but more than one prayer had been answered in that brief time.