Three Christmases ago, they mourned the loss of their infant son. Today, they are celebrating.

Three years ago, while celebrating the birth of their Savior, Melissa and Chris Johnson also mourned the death of their 1-year-old son.

Since then, the Phenix City couple has come to embrace these circumstances, further strengthening their faith and testifying to the power of love over loss.

After that storm took away their Joshua, a rainbow appeared in the Johnson family’s sky. Her name is Susanna Joy, now 3 months old, joining their other daughter, 6-year-old Sarah Ruth — whose special prayer, the Johnsons believe, helped bring this gift.

All three of their children came into their lives through adoption. So the Johnsons insist they are sharing this chapter of their story not because it has a happy ending, but because of the lesson that made it possible: Without risking the pain of being hurt again, they couldn’t have received another child to love again.

Joshua’s story

In October 2014, the Ledger-Enquirer reported the story of Joshua, the Johnsons’ seemingly healthy adopted son who spent his first birthday in a pediatric intensive care unit after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Melissa and Chris used their rare faith to combat this rare cancer. They cherished the time they had with Joshua, and they still marvel at the ripples that emanated from his brief but meaningful life.

“He wasn’t a pebble in a pond,” Chris said. “He was a massive boulder in a pond.”

They are grateful for the outpouring of support they received and that Joshua’s struggle inspired others to be more prayerful.

“We still have people that talk about him and remember him and what his life made, a change in their lives,” Melissa said.

The most dramatic example: A family friend was motivated to become a pediatric nurse, ending up at Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta, where Joshua was treated — and she was named a finalist for Nurse of the Year in Georgia.

“Isn’t that amazing?” Melissa said.

Chris, 39, is a graphic designer at the Columbus State University Coca-Cola Space Science Center. Melissa, 41, is a labor and delivery nurse at St. Francis Hospital. She was named a Nurse of the Year at Doctors Hospital in 2010 — when she had a miscarriage and fertility treatments failed.

Pushing through the cruel irony of Melissa not being able to bear children while helping hundreds of other women give birth, the Johnsons believed God had other plans for their urge to parent, allowing them to provide a home for children in need.

Their faith continued to be tested as they persevered through a failed adoption — the birth mother changed her mind — before Joshua became their son.

“If Joshua taught us anything,” Chris said, “it was to continue to love. It was to continue to go forward.”

But after Joshua died, Melissa said, “I was bitter, I was angry – all those feelings..”

She realized, however, “If I had quit then, I would have never met Joshua.”

Deciding to adopt again

Since their son died, the Johnsons have used Joshua’s room to pray. As she has gone through her grief, Melissa has read Bible verses about joy. They remind her, she said, “God is working for our good, and don’t give up. There is hope, and He is our hope.”

So they decided to try adopting again. “It’s worth the pain,” Melissa said. “It’s worth it, because I knew God would bring good.”

January 2016 and September 2016 brought two more failed adoptions — the birth mothers again changed their minds — and Chris became more protective than hopeful.

“I can’t take my family being hurt anymore,” he thought. “I can’t take Melissa getting another sucker punch.”

Chris, however, finally agreed another attempt to adopt would mean Joshua’s abbreviated life was not in vain.

“If it just stopped with him,” he said, “then we’re not doing him justice.” Giving up, he said, would be “giving in to whatever the grief might be handing us.”

And when he looked at his wife, Chris thought, “I knew that if I said it was over, there’s a part of us that was going to be over.”

Sarah Ruth’s prayer

Following the death of Joshua, each time the Johnsons saw a rainbow with Sarah Ruth, they told her that Jesus had given her brother a good job in Heaven: painting the sky.

Still, it was hard for the Johnsons to keep the arduous adoption process from Sarah Ruth, then 5.

“She saw the pain in our home,” Melissa said. “She decided to take matters into her own hands.”

In May, Sarah Ruth started saying this prayer every night: “I want a sister baby or brother baby, double please, please-please.”

On May 18, Chris’ birthday — only 10 days before their one-year certification to adopt would expire — the Johnsons were matched with a birth mother who picked their profile because she had read Joshua’s story and her premature baby had died.

“She did not have the financial means to take care of another child,” Melissa said. “She loved Susanna enough to give her a good home.”

Melissa and Chris then joined Sarah Ruth in her nightly prayer, and this birth mother didn’t change her mind.

“We knew God would answer that sweet prayer,” Melissa said. “… God has a special ear for the prayers of children.”

Adoptive parents can request a gender, but the Johnsons didn’t.

“There is no replacing Joshua,” Chris said. “We felt like we were getting a girl for that reason. … He is our little boy.”

That’s why Melissa was relieved when the birth mother’s ultrasound showed they were getting a girl.

Joyful gift

The Johnsons had to venture through one more storm before receiving this gift. In September 2017, the week before Susanna Joy was born in St. Petersburg, Fla., Hurricane Irma swept through the area.

“It was a very nervous time about the safety of everyone during the hurricane,” Melissa said. “Thankfully, the area was not damaged and Susanna was born on Sept. 19.”

Melissa participated in the delivery — at the same hospital where Sarah Ruth was born — but this time she received the blessing of cutting the cord.

She wasn’t present for the birth of Sarah Ruth or Joshua, so being there when Susanna Joy came into the world “was wonderful,” Melissa said. “… I see it every week, but it’s totally different when it’s your child.”

The Johnsons noted another kind of gift enabled them to add Susanna Joy to their family. When Joshua got sick, Melissa had to take a leave of absence from her job. Money was tight.

“People were very, very gracious to give to us,” Chris said.

After they paid the bills from Joshua’s medical care, Melissa said, “we had a chunk of money left over.”

That amount was more than $10,000.

“We knew this money had to go to something special,” Chris said.

So they used that money to pay for the adoption services bringing them Susanna Joy.

“We could not have done that, even thought about the adoption process again from a financial perspective, had it not been for that,” Chris said. “…We had people that would not take no for an answer, and they helped us in ways that now I’m trying to mimic.”

Chris added, “It was just like a 1-2-3 God’s grace punch. You’re so upset at the time when it was all going down, you don’t understand it. But, in the end, you retrospectively look back and go, ‘Oh, OK. I get that. ... I just know, with Susanna Joy, Melissa is smiling again, and we have not smiled in three years. Even if she did smile, it was not a real smile.”

Don’t stop seeking

Thinking about what they have learned through this journey, Chris emphasized, “Even in the darkest times, all we could do was look at our faith and trust. I didn’t know we were going to have a happy ending. … In the eye of the storm, it’s hard to thank God. It’s hard to praise God for that. … A lot of people during this time will lash out at God. They’ll get angry at God. And you know what? That’s OK. God can take it.”

The key, Chris suggested, is to not stop seeking. “That’s when you mess up,” he said.

They didn’t go through formal grief counseling – “We probably should have,” Melissa said – but their pastor helped and they found solace in the Bible. Sharing their story and testimony as guest speakers at churches also boosted their spirits. Their message: seeing God in the storm.

The Johnsons saw that advice in action when a fellow congregant at Philadelphia Baptist Church in Smiths Station who also had lost a child approached them at Chick-fil-A and told them, “I’ve been in your shoes, and I still don’t know what to say.”

Chris recalled, “That right there spoke volumes.”

Three years after Joshua died, Chris said, “we’re still very much in our grief. We’re still walking through that valley. But God —Susanna Joy is one of the graces He’s given us to continue to pull us through.”

Chris added, “Everybody really has to kind of discover and to grieve their own way and at their own rate.”

That’s why Melissa tells fellow mourners, “I don’t know your pain, but I know the pain.”

Christmas then and now

“I did not want Joshua to die on Christmas Day,” Melissa said.

“Initially,” Chris added.

Melissa continued, “My pastor said that one day it would be different, and it is.”

Christmas 2015, they put up a tree, “but there was really no joy,” Melissa said.

Christmas 2016, they celebrated a bit more. “We are Christians, and it’s the birth of our Savior, and it should be a lot of joy, but it was just very hard. … Even seeing Christmas lights would send flashbacks of that time.”

Melissa made Joshua-themed mini Christmas trees for family members, decorated with photos of him and ornaments in his honor. The Johnsons keep their Joshua tree up all year.

They used to pull around Joshua in a red Radio Flyer wagon to help him fall asleep. Last year, Chris decorated another wagon with Christmas lights and donated it in Joshua’s memory to another boy with a cancerous brain tumor. The medication the boy had to take made his skin so sensitive, he could go out only at night, so the lights Chris put on that wagon provided safety as well as beauty.

“That made Christmas,” Melissa said.

Now, when Melissa tells someone that her son died on Christmas Day, she also says, “It is hard, but I know that day, it had a purpose.”

She then explained that purpose.

“Even in the worst situation, I can say there is peace,” she said. “Even if Susanna had not come, I would still have that peace. God is good, and He gave us another child. His love is amazing, and at Christmas, that’s what it’s all about. Joy to the world.”

Chris added, “You have to take that risk to receive that joy. Melissa is our risk-taker. … Even though I consider myself a strong, faithful person, a lot of times I have to see the rock in front of me before I jump. That’s just the way I am. Melissa is normally the one that pushes me off that rock. And if she had not pushed us all off that rock, then …”

“… Don’t lose hope,” Melissa said, finishing his sentence.

Joshua is buried in the cemetery next to their church. The year following his death, the Johnsons visited his grave every Sunday after church. Now, they go on special occasions.

And when they visit the grave this Christmas Day, they will tell Joshua about his new baby sister.

“We saw how his life led us to her,” Melissa said, “and we’re just thanking God for all of our three children.”

She concluded, “God’s timing is perfect. The waiting period helped us get closer to God and trust His plan for our family. It gave us more time to continue the grieving process from losing Joshua on Christmas Day 2014. Susanna has made our family complete. We can’t wait to tell her about Joshua.”

Rejoice

The Johnsons have converted Joshua’s room into Susanna Joy’s nursery. The Bible verse from Joshua 1:9 they had dedicated to their son remains emblazoned on the wall beside the crib. And after they brought home Susanna Joy, they added to that wall a rainbow arching over those words:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Susanna Joy’s birth announcement refers to 1 Peter 1:6:

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”

This story was originally published December 24, 2017 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Three Christmases ago, they mourned the loss of their infant son. Today, they are celebrating.."