‘My wife had three miscarriages before our first little boy arrived. In the aftermath of the third miscarriage, she got pregnant. I was anxious about the pregnancy not going to plan. I was hyper-sensitive, hyper-alert. I couldn’t envisage a future in which we would have a baby. I thought that was how it would always be.

‘I became a controlaholic. There were many parts of my life that I could control, but not this. I felt vulnerable and shocked, shocked at myself, at what was beneath the surface. I realised that life is a gift, not a right.

‘I was trying to control what I could: what my wife was eating, panicking if the baby moved. Most days there was a cloud of anxiety that settled on my mind that would not go away. It brought tensions in our marriage.

‘Psalm 127 became a very good friend in that period. It says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain…Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb, a reward.”

‘That just reminded me of the bigger picture. I saw that a child’s life was totally a gift from God and can’t be manufactured or manipulated. It just stabilised me, I would say.

‘Toby is now three. His brother, Theo, is one. They fill our lives with joy. They’re a constant reminder of the gift to us and that God’s goodness has been expressed in that very tangible and concrete way. Toby was a gift to us at a time of longing and agony and prayer.

‘That helps us to hold Toby and Theo with a great sense of deep care and gratefulness and yet open-handedness as a gift from God. We don’t own them.’

Do you have a story to share? Email mybible@biblesociety.org.uk

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