Unimaginable tragedy struck in 2015 when Pastor Gentry Eddings of Forest Hill Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his wife, Hadley, lost their two children in a horrific car accident.
BOLD: 8-Year-Old Girl Delivers Powerful Prayer to Mourning San Antonio Cops
But just two years after their 2-year-old son, Dobbs, and their baby, Reed, died, the Eddings family has welcomed twins into the world — an uplifting update to a story that initially left so many people across the nation and the world in deep mourning.
Gentry and Hadley Eddings welcomed Isaiah Dobbs and Amos Reed on Monday, giving them middle names that honor the newborns’ late siblings, WSOC-TV reported.
As The Charlotte Observer reported, the couple announced in January that they were expecting. Gentry Eddings released a Facebook video at the time thanking supporters and saying that he and his wife were “amazed at this gift and this miracle of new life.”
“This is who God is,” he said. “A miracle-working, redeeming God.”
Watch that video below:
The couple had previously attracted attention for their public decision to forgive Matthew Deans, the driver of the truck that caused the car crash. Forgiveness has since been a theme they’ve discussed when invoking their story.
“We believe there is a lot of hope in our story and it reminds us God is a restorer,” Gentry Eddings has said of the couple’s process in overcoming the horrible situation. “Be willing to forgive others – that’s been an important part of our healing is just to be able to forgive the driver that caused the accident.”
As the time of the accident, Hadley Eddings was 38 weeks pregnant. Doctors delivered Reed, but the baby boy died a few days later.
Due to the nature of the story, the incident made national headlines, with David Chadwick, senior pastor at Forest Hill Church, releasing a statement in the wake of the crash saying that the couple was beloved that that Gentry is “a man of enormous integrity.”
“They both possess a deep faith,” Chadwick said. “But it will be challenged in the days and weeks to come like no other time.”
The couple has surely weathered that storm, with their willingness to forgive likely inspiring many to do the same in their own lives.