I heard a voice inside me say, ‘Pull your head in.’ Waking from my slumber as my wife drove home, our beautiful toddler and baby in the back, my first sight was the horror on Penny’s face.

A car hurtled past, I heard the sound of shattering glass, felt a sharp gust of wind and our family car veered off the motorway at 60 mph, rolling three times, the driver’s side taking the first full impact. Then, a thud and silence.

I saw Abigail, our 10.5 month old, hanging out of the back window… Unconsciousness is a mercy, some say. Our involuntary rollercoaster ride was unfortunately not a dream. I turned off the engine, saw my wife slumped over the steering wheel with vomit, blood and glass mixed on her face, windows all gone. The door was jammed. I saw Abigail, our 10.5 month old, hanging out of the back window, her failed safety strap—a noose.

Torturous moments of darkness ensued as I fought to get at her, to loosen her straps, to free her, but to no avail. Our 3.5yr old son, Caleb’s seat was empty. Clutching Abigail’s limp body close, I wandered 100ft away and found Caleb lying motionless in the grass. I was too late again.

To my mind, my wife was also dead. As the protector of my family, I had failed; I was totally impotent. With my two babies in my arms, I yelled at the top of my lungs, ‘Where are you God?’. Anger, loss, total devastation.

We were both 26 years old, and our marriage was already on the rocks. We were different people at home compared to how we were to the outside world. To all intents and purposes, we were a good, Christian family. But, I was battling with addictions, Penny and I were broken, not communicating effectively and had so much baggage.

We had agreed that neither of us wanted children before we married, but Penny changed her mind. We lost one baby through miscarriage and then she persuaded me to have another; that was Caleb. Then another—gorgeous Abigail. We lived in a motorhome and could hardly make ends meet. Yet, I was asked to preach at Churches and we gave a good show. But privately, we were far from happy.

That fateful day, 31 years ago, my false idea of faith also died. I had God in my little box. I thought, if you prayed enough, did X, Y and Z, everything would be fine. Yet, within hours, our children were dead and our family destroyed.

Faith was trusting God when I don’t have a clue what He’s doing. Later came the knowledge that faith was trusting God when I don’t have a clue what He’s doing. Later, I would learn that He’s the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 who never leaves or forsakes us, that He holds us and is able to ultimately turn all things for good—even death. This new paradigm I came to know was where God IS love and that He draws us—Jeremiah 31:3.

Penny had been raised in a dysfunctional home, where there had been sexual abuse and trauma. Her character traits of tenacity and sheer stubbornness were what caused her to survive, we believe. Her left arm is paralysed from the elbow down, but to see how she deftly held Hannah and Elijah (our first two miracle babies) as we drove on a motorbike working in Cambodia 8 years after our accident, is testament to her determination and fortitude.

Both of us came to see that God is bigger than even death. Therefore, what else could we be afraid of?

As God worked in the aftermath of our tragedy, we saw God with skin on—through the way people around us showed us His love. Jeremiah 29:11 showed us that He’s a God who cares more for our eternal character than our temporal comfort. John 10:10 taught us that all the destruction caused by the devil, that God can take those things and has a long range plan that far outweighs all the suffering. Romans 8:28 showed us His power was incredibly inclusive. He proved that to Penny and I. He saved our marriage. He’s given us a family again and transformed us in so many ways.

We experienced grief and a God of love who meets us in the middle of that grief and carries us through. One night when Penny woke up sobbing, she could only picture her two babies frozen, cold and dead in a coffin. She read Psalm 56:8 where God keeps a record of our tears in a bottle. She gained immense comfort from that knowledge that He records every single tear and knows all our pain.

Anger is very real. I have thrown a Bible across the room, stopped reading it, the pain being too raw. That first yell of, ‘Where are you, God?’ came many times. But, He can take it. He wants us to be real.

There is an 85% divorce rate within two years of the death of a child. Now, we have joy, peace, are still married and happily so. There is an 85% divorce rate within two years of the death of a child. We were told we needed to fight FOR our marriage. But we misunderstood that as needing to fight IN our marriage! We grieved differently. Penny needed to process her grief through talking. I needed to grieve alone. I needed to learn not to shut her down. When Penny was asleep, I would need to jumpstart my grieving process by looking at photos and journalling.

The PTSD would cause me to lose control and have involuntary tremours for several months. They would come over me while driving and I would have to pull over until they passed. We had a grief counsellor, a Pastor (minister) who met with us separately. Grieving is not an exact science. We each went through the stages of anger, denial, depression and bargaining and eventually acceptance.

There were also triggers that we needed to leave behind. We changed home but stayed in the same town. Loving friends packed all Caleb and Abigail’s toys so that we didn’t need to. Hearing the sound of children’s happy chatter was a trigger. I remember a playground nearby that I used to take Abigail and Caleb to. One day, I saw that it had been filled in with concrete. I was depressed for a couple of weeks.

The key in our recovery was the love of people around us, our beautiful, small church community. Some were more aware than us as to how losing our two children would impact us. Our closest friends had two children of a similar age to Abigail and Caleb. Soon after the accident, they came alone to see us and said, ‘We want you to know that we love you, and give you permission to avoid us, as seeing our children will be too painful for you.’ We shrugged off their concern saying, ‘We’ll be fine.’ But, sure enough, we could not handle being around other young families.

Our friends were right. As we had lost our two children on a Saturday, the day we went to church, for years after, our church community made sure that we were never alone for lunch after the church service. They would invite us home, which helped us immensely.

Transformation came—in us individually, in our marriage and then physically, through a new family! Three years to the day after the accident, 3 December 1997, we adopted Elijah and found out that Penny was pregnant, with a baby girl we named Hannah. So, two babies, one in our arms, one in the womb. It was the beginning of the miracles. After the accident, we thought Penny would never be able to conceive again, yet we went on to have two more miracle babies—Noah and Hadassah.

I am reminded of Ephesians 3:20, ‘He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think’… Now, we live in a state of worship. It’s difficult to be offended. We have so much joy, some people say that I’m not serious enough as I joke around so much. Even though I have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer and Penny’s parents died this year (we are driving away from her mum’s funeral as we share our story for ALIVE and FREE), we are struck by the goodness of God.

A good God who, in everything, is with us, in us, and is always for us. We can be fully alive despite the pain of loss and free of hopelessness because we know the One who faced death and won—the ultimate victor!