One Spiritual Encounter as a Little Girl Changed Her Life Forever

It was a hot summer day. The windows were up and Mom was playing the piano, filling the air with joy. I began twirling and singing, as any normal little girl would to music being played. I did not have one care in the world.
Everything in my little life at that moment seemed absolutely perfect, until I heard a strange noise. I heard a baby crying at the top of its lungs.
This baby sounded hopeless and so scared. This baby's cry sounded so close to me that I thought it was
in the bushes outside my window. As I froze in shock, my little brain had a million questions as to why there would be a baby outside my window.
I ran crying and got my mom to come look. "Mom, there is a baby outside of my window! It's scared! It wants its mommy!"

She got up in a hurry and ran to my room. She looked out my window and there was not a baby to be found. She had a look in her eye like she did not believe me, but she went along with it to make me happy. I made her go outside and look all around; still, we could not find a baby. I was devastated because I thought someone might have seen the baby and taken it when I ran to get my mom.

I cried and felt like it was my fault for losing the baby. She assured me everything was OK. I did not believe her, so we prayed for the baby that I heard crying who mysteriously disappeared from the bushes.
For several days after that, at random times I would hear babies crying. I did not tell anyone for a while, but I finally told Mom that I kept hearing them cry. I thought she would laugh at me because she did not seem to believe me a few days before. However, her response amazed me.
She told me about Samuel in the Bible. He kept hearing his name being called, and he thought it was Eli calling him—when really it was the Lord calling his name. She then smiled, stroked my head, put my hair behind my ears and said, "Pray and listen."

Even though I was a little girl, I had a close relationship with the Lord. He encountered me and I encountered Him. I had a set time every day when I would spend time with Him. After Mom said to pray and listen, I went and put away my dolls, turned on worship music and prayed. As I began to pray, I heard the babies crying even louder. It was so loud I remember covering my ears.
I began to weep from a place deep inside. I did not know what was going on, but I knew as a little girl it was Jesus sharing His feelings with me. While I was weeping, my stomach began to hurt as if something had been ripped out of me. The only thing that would bring relief was to rock back and forth. I was praying, weeping and rocking.

Every day in my time with the Lord, this would happen to me; every day it intensified. I shared about those times with my mom. I remember telling Mom that somehow I knew the pain I felt in my stomach had to do with the mom of the baby that I heard crying. She sat down with me and we prayed, then wrote it down in her journal.
One night she was cooking supper and I was playing with my dolls, as a Christian television station played in the background. A guest speaker by the name of Lou Engle was on that evening.
After he spoke, he and his team began to pray for America. It caught my attention because they were weeping and rocking, just like I had in my prayer time with God. Suddenly I did not feel so strange anymore. Different team members would take the microphone and pray.

One girl took the mic, and the words that came out of her mouth stunned me. She said, "Can you hear the babies crying?" Mom suddenly stopped what she was doing. "Come and sit in my lap, Amanda," she welcomed me. The next guy praying was crying and asked, "Can you feel the pain of the mother!?" At this point, I was crying and shaking.
Mom just held me as we listened to them pray for the babies, their moms and for revival in America. I was a little girl and had no idea what abortion was, but that night God marked me. He marked me to cry out for the unborn. He marked me to pray and be a carrier of revival.

I went back to school on fire. I even tried to start a little prayer group for the babies and for America. I wrote the word LIFE on my thumb with a permanent marker every day. People found it strange, and I lost a couple friends; but what I had experienced meant so much more to me.
Why did I have such a sensitive spirit on the issue of life? Rewinding more than a decade before this encounter may help explain.

I was born on Oct. 12, 1992. To some people, this may be a common statement. To me, it is so much more than that. My parents were both told that they could never have children. For seven years, they prayed and fasted.
They believed the Word of the Lord so much so that they set up a baby nursery. Every early morning around 3 a.m., when Dad got home from his night shift, they would go stand over the baby bed and thank God for their baby.

One Sunday night, their pastor called my mom to the front and said that he saw a light shining from heaven around my mom. When he stepped into the light, he saw a white Cherokee rose bloom in her womb. He told her that she would conceive. He went on to say that this baby would be a warrior who carried the spirit of Jehu.
Another man came up and said, "And his name shall be called John!" Three weeks later my mom, after seven years of tears, praying and fasting, she was pregnant! "To God be all the glory," my parents said.
Seven months into her pregnancy, her water broke. She was rushed to the hospital. As she and Dad hurried through traffic, their pastor called. He said that the Lord had woken him up and told him that the spirit of Herod was going to attempt to take the child's life—but to know that he could not.
He also said that the baby would live to declare the work of the Lord. "For just as the angels watched over Jesus' birth, they would watch over this baby's birth," he concluded.

Once they arrived at the hospital, the doctor said that they would have to do an emergency C-section to try to save the baby. After the C-section, I was in critical condition. I was hooked up in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to tons of tubes and machines.

The doctor said if I lived for 12 hours it would be a miracle... then 24 hours... then 48. When the doctor would talk negatively, like I wasn't going to make it, my mom says I would hold up my fist like I defied his prognosis. I would hold on to life.
I had to stay in the hospital for months as a baby. Ever so often in the NICU, she would see me raise up my fist again as if to say: "Mom, I'm fighting."

Amanda Dees