Gracie Marilyn Jones

A neighbor came by today and explained that one of the best things I could do now that the miscarriage is completed and I'm back from the hospital was to name our baby. Then put the name in our family records. So here in a way, I am doing this except instead of just keeping it locked in a journal, I'm letting it all out.

As I look back on this experience. I remember a childhood Christmas story that I love to read almost every year. This past year I was so busy with work and finals, that I just seemed to skip it. But the story is a classic from Richard Paul Evans' book, The Christmas Box. It's a story about a mother who loved her daughter so very much to where she wrote letters to her every Christmas until the Christmas she died.

I would have loved my daughter that much too. In my mind, I must be going crazy but I pictured a little girl almost like Aiden coming to us. She would have had my brown curly hair and Kevin's blue eyes. Her name would have been Gracie Marilyn Jones. Gracie because grace is so important to all of us and grace is what saves us. Grace also reminds me of my own mother, the sweet things that she does and say each day. Marilyn would be for my mother-in-law and for all that she has sacrificed for her family raising nine children. Marilyn is also the name of child in Sue's family who was poisioned by carbon monoxide at two, surivied and lived until she was age 11. It is a special name on the Rydman side of the family.

I imagined pink dresses and bows. In fact, my sister-in-law Jen was the only who really believed me when I talked about the baby being a girl. She must have been thinking the same thing.

So my final message is really for Gracie and me. The recovery I am going through. I love you and I'm glad you get to stay in Jesus' arms. I will come see you and hold you in the next life.

Quoting from the book of Moroni Chapter 8:

11 And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.
12 But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a brespecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!
13 Wherefore, if little children could not be saved without baptism, these must have gone to an endless hell.
14 Behold I say unto you, that he that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; for he hath neither afaith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down to hell.
15 For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must perish because he hath no baptism.

She is perfect in every way with smiles up above. She is with Jesus who will take care of her. This is my answer to the world and anyone who asks or has lost a child.

I will end with the words of the Savior in which you can find in John 14

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.