Al Roker Celebrates Son’s Sermon at Church: ‘I Could Not Be Prouder of Who He Is’
By Movieguide® Staff
NBC meteorologist Al Roker recently celebrated his son, Nick, after the 19-year-old preached a sermon at St. James Church.
“I wanted to share just a small part of our son, Nick’s, sermon today at church,” Roker wrote in a caption of a video posted to his Instagram. “I could not be prouder of who he is and what he has accomplished.
“His parents are proud and I know his grandparents are looking down and are even prouder,” Roker added.
The video clip featured a section of Nick’s sermon where he expressed his thankfulness for learning and success, despite his learning disability.
“Today, I am 19 years old and about to graduate high school,” Nick shared. “I have a learning disability, and I have worked extra hard to get to this point. This last semester, I earned all A’s on my report card.
“It feels really good, but my accomplishments haven’t all been about school. They have also been about perseverance here at St. James,” he added. “I have always felt loved and supported here. I am happy and feel accomplished after each service…I feel empowered here and welcome. I am accepted here for who I am.”
Al shares Nick with his wife, ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts.
“He has accomplished so many things. He has gotten a black belt in Taekwondo. He swam competitively,” Roberts added. “He tried to train for the marathon, although he changed his mind.
“I got his permission to talk about it because that is his private business but he is so excited and we are too,” she said.
Al previously opened up about some of the challenges he and Deborah faced when conceiving Nick:
Meteorologist and anchor on NBC’s TODAY, Al Roker, said that his family, and especially his children, takes precedence over everything else in his life.
…Amid tragedy, Roker and his wife’s perspective of God changed.
“It wasn’t that we weren’t parents already. But ever since the day Deborah showed me that test strip, we’d both felt something new at work in our lives. The incredible mystery of God working through us to create a new life. I think we both knew then and there that there was no turning back,” he said.
Despite the doctor’s warning the Rokers of the long and challenging road ahead, they had their minds set on having a child.
“We opted for in vitro fertilization. It was a success; Deborah got pregnant again,” Roker said. “This time I was afraid to be too happy. The doctors told us how critical the first trimester was. I prayed every day, asking God to keep my wife and our unborn child in his hands.
“Twelve weeks later, we went into the sonogram room together. I had years of live TV under my belt, and thought I was well past the butterflies-in-the-stomach phase. But I’d never felt so unsettled before. The doctor turned on the monitor and the screen flickered to life. He ran the wand over Deborah’s belly. ‘There,’ he said,” Roker recalled. “He flipped a switch and the room filled with sound. A steady, thumping beat. ‘Good, strong heartbeat. Congratulations!'”
Roker added: “In that moment, all my doubts and worries, all my questions about whether or not Deborah and I had done the right thing, completely vanished. Science may have helped us on our path to pregnancy, but it couldn’t get us all the way to the end. The only thing that could do that was the power and grace of God. He’d been with us on this journey every step of the way. This was his miracle; the beautiful, glorious, humbling mystery of life.”
