God doesn’t always prepare us for tragedy in advance, but He does carry us through it. This was the case last November when my phone rang at 4:45 am.

Anna, my 33-year-old daughter and one of our seven children, had gone into labor with her third child. After her water had broken, she was gasping for air.

My wife and I rushed to the Hospital and were told to sit in the waiting room, but I refused. “I am a pastor and her father,” I explained to the doctors. “I want to be with my daughter.” When I walked into the labor room, I was confronted with my worst fear.

Doctors were huddled over Anna — pumping her chest. There was blood all over the floor. The heart monitor showed no activity. I shouted, NO GOD! I’m not ready for you to take my daughter … please … I need a miracle!” I had pastored for 29 years and I believed in miracles — but at that moment, our miracle was not what we expected.

As Anna was promoted to Heaven — the result of an enlarged heart — and everyone in the room wept, a nurse burst through the door. “We have the baby and she’s breathing!”

In an adjoining room, doctors had been working on Anna’s baby who’d been delivered via emergency C section when Anna stopped breathing. For eight minutes, this child had no heartbeat — and then God breathed life into her.

Right then, in the midst of this tragedy, we got our miracle.

Doctors agreed. We placed Janae Serenity Thomas next to her Mumma for the first and final time and then after seven days, my wife and I took Janae home as her new custodians.

In the months after Anna’s death, it was the ministry of Hillsong Channel and music that helped us heal. Songs like, “Jesus I need you,” resonated with my soul, and certain messages were prophetic in this season.

Just after Anna died, a pastor on the Channel was talking about being thankful for the miracles in your life. In the New Year, another pastor spoke about new beginnings. These messages enabled us to glorify the miracle that had occurred and not the pain of my daughter’s death.