Mandy Baker Johnson

Six years ago today my life was unwelcomely and irrevocably changed. Adrian and I were told that we would never have children naturally. The day before, my dad had been called Home to Glory.

For a long time I was stunned and grieved – grieved for the loss of my dad, grieved for the children we would never have, for the grandchildren we could never know.

But God was good through it all. And if you’re in a similar situation, He will be good to you too. You will get through it. ‘…And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.’

A Christian called Robert Robinson had this inscribed on the gravestone of a child he had lost:

Bold infidelity, turn pale and die,
Beneath this stone an infant’s ashes lie –
Say, is it lost or saved?
If death’s by sin, it sinned, for it lies here.
If heaven’s by works, in heaven it can’t appear.
O reason, who depraved!
Revere the sacred page – the knot’s untied;
It died, for Adam sinned;
It lives, for Jesus died.