Ian Thomas

This past weekend was heartbreaking for us. We've been praying and dreaming of starting a family for two years and God was graceful and gave us baby boy for 18 weeks, all in utero, but we were hoping to spend much much more time with him. We never got to see his smile or get to know his cries or teach him how to play basketball. Despite all of that we are comforted that God has a plan, his ways are not our ways. Our beautiful baby is already in the arms of God.

We gave him the name Ian Thomas Crandall.
Ian : Gift from God
Thomas : Divinely Preserved
(name definitions provided by The Name Book)

Ian is our gift from God that is divinely preserved in Heaven.

Ian, we will see you some day. We love you so much and can't wait to get to know you.

My great grandfather, Garland Edward Markham (aka Grandpa Markham) also passed away this weekend. We are overjoyed that they get to experience and learn heaven together (though we admittedly are a little jealous that Grandpa Markham gets to know Ian before we do).

On the way home from the hospital the first two songs on the radio were "Praise you in this Storm" by Casting Crowns which says:

I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
Every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

and "All my praise" by Selah which says:

I will follow You through green pastures
And sing hallelujah to Your Name
I will follow You through dark disaster
And sing hallelujah through the pain
And even in the shadow of death
I will praise You

The last song we heard right before arriving home was "Held" by Natalie grant which starts out:

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we’d be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
Were asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it’s unfair
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We’d be held

These songs were so tough to hear and are tough to even type, we know that they're true but it's hard, we're holding on to each other and holding on to our God. We've also been blessed with a great support network of family, friends and even coworkers. Thank you all for your prayers and for providing us a forum to vent and cry.