A Happy Picture

Rose Chan and her husband, Paul Wong, (names changed) had been sealed in the temple. Their daughter was the first grandchild of their parents in Hong Kong. Rose knew her in-laws loved their granddaughter but also that “in the older generation, they like boys more than girls.” She experienced intense pressure to bear sons. She prayed fervently their next child would be a boy.

Even as Rose was in labor in the hospital, she knelt before the window and pleaded to God, “Please promise me: give me a boy.”

Then a picture came into her mind. It was “a really, really happy picture” with two little girls and their father, walking hand in hand along the street. “They are very, very happy, and in the street they say good-bye to their daddy; they kiss.” In her mind, Rose saw two daughters playing together and helping each other.

Rose realized God was telling her the child would be a girl. Several years later, when she and her husband were walking to school with their two daughters and the girls kissed their father goodbye, Rose realized, “I remember I saw this before.” She reflected, “I know my Heavenly Father loves us. He gave the feeling of what the girls mean to us.”

This feeling of God’s care for their family sustained Rose in 1992 when she immigrated with three young daughters to Ontario, while Paul remained in Hong Kong for about six years.