Episode 365 - Ashley Opliger, "Cradled in Hope: Trusting Jesus Through Infant Loss"

Welcome back to Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. In today’s episode, Michael sits down with Ashley Opliger, author of the new book Cradled in Hope: Trusting Jesus to Heal Your Heart as He Holds Your Baby in Heaven. This deeply moving conversation explores Ashley’s personal journey through the heartbreak of miscarriage and infant loss, and how her grief led to unexpected hope and purpose.

Ashley shares the story of her daughter, Bridget Faith, whose brief life inspired not only her book but also the founding of Bridget’s Cradles—a ministry bringing comfort to thousands of families facing similar tragedy. Throughout the episode, Ashley and Michael discuss the realities of grieving with hope, the importance of lament and honest faith, and the ways Jesus meets us in our deepest darkness.

You’ll hear practical wisdom for grieving parents, profound reflections on faith and suffering, and the incredible story behind a small handmade cradle that’s touched tens of thousands of lives. Whether you are navigating loss yourself or want to better understand how to support those who are, this conversation offers raw honesty, biblical hope, and a reminder that we are never alone in our pain.

Transcript

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Restoring the Soul podcast. It's Michael, and here is an episode today that I'm so glad you're listening to. I feel a sense of heaviness and excitement all at the same time as I talk with our guest today, Ashley Opliger. Did I say that right? Yes, you got it right. Ashley Opliger, who I've had a chance to meet before today's our second time together. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It is really a pleasure and an honor to talk with you. Your book, which is brand new, is called Cradled in trusting Jesus to heal your heart as he holds your baby in heaven. It's a biblical guide for grieving, miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. And this is not a theoretical book for you. This came out of your own story. So they say in the podcasting interviewing world that, you know, you should turn the spotlight onto your guest right away. But I want to brag about my guest first, which is you. I was very moved as I read the book. And full disclosure, as I said to you earlier, I've not finished the book, but what I have read, very, very moving. A wonderful blend of truth and pointing people to Jesus, but without walloping them over the head with religion. And then a marvelous, heartbreaking, hopeful, inspiring way of you telling your story about losing your little girl, Bridget faith. So let's just jump in and say, how did this book get written and give me an overview of your loss and your husband's loss. Well, first of all, thank you so much for your kind words about my writing and the book. It was all the Lord working through me and sharing my testimony and years of healing through all of my grief journey of losing Bridget in 2014. But as you said, it is very rich in theology and wanting to share the hope of Jesus, but hopefully in a way where a mom reading it, no matter where she's at in her grief and faith journey, if she's lost a baby 10 years ago or just very recently, she's brand new in her faith or she's walked with Jesus her whole life. My prayer is that she would meet Jesus in these pages and really be grounded in biblical truth. But yet also the rawness of my stories that she feels seen and known in her pain, that she feels validated in that. And then also just a lot of practical guidance on what does this look like to grieve with hope and with biblical knowledge. So thank you for acknowledging that. But to go back to your question, my husband and I have been married over 11 years. And we were married in May of 2014. We went on a honeymoon and came back with a wonderful surprise of expecting our first child, a little girl named Bridget. And we were just so excited to grow our family and, you know, start building the nursery out and buying baby clothes and all of those things. We were very excited to be parents. And I was at my work as a speech pathologist. That was what my master's is in and what I was doing before ministry. And I was at work, I started having very heavy bleeding. I was rushed to the emergency room, and when I got there, they said, you have a subchorionic hemorrhage. You're most likely going to miscarry, but you can go on bed rest, try to take it very easy, and pray for the best. And that's what I did at 13 weeks. And then I was on bedrest all the way for 11 weeks, up to 24 weeks, five days, when I went into labor. And she was unfortunately stillborn, which means that at the time of her delivery, she did not have a heartbeat and she was already in the arms of Jesus. And as you can imagine, for first time parents, or for any parent losing a child, just the overwhelming grief and sadness and trauma of that kind of situation was very, very difficult. But yet at the same, just could feel the Lord's presence. And he ended up working so many things out of that pain for good and for his glory. Thank you for that. I imagine that you've probably told that story hundreds of times, if not more, because now this is your ministry. Yet as you share it, I kind of get the tingles because I read the book and now I'm sitting with you, and that story is so real. When you think about Bridget Faith today, and you have this ministry that is serving over 30,000 people a year with the cradles that we will talk about, are there still moments when you feel that sting? There definitely is. And as you said so perfectly, yes, I've had to share her story and not had to share, but had the privilege and the honor to share her story. I say in my book that she, more than anyone else on this earth other than Jesus, she changed my life more than anyone else. And the life trajectory that I was going down just. She changed everything. And I went into ministry and I just felt like God woke me up from this lukewarm Christianity, this slumber that I was in to really proclaim the gospel and to share that with urgency and to live my days out for his glory. And I really think that her life was the moment for me to decide, do I really believe what I've said? I've always believed. Do I really believe Jesus is who he said he is? And so. So through that, there's been that sharing of her story through time. But I think for me, more so with my grief, it's in the private moments. I can share it without crying, you know, when I'm talking about it on podcasts or various ministry opportunities. But it's like when I'm alone and I'm thinking about her, because even this many years later, I still very much miss her and long to see her again. And so although the Lord has brought healing to my heart and joy back to my life, there's still very much that, because we're separated until I go to go home to heaven or Jesus comes back, whichever happens first. And so there's the private moments of grieving. And I think that's very healthy to continue to do. Thank you. Thank you for that. So many different directions I could go. But the first thing that I want to say is, because Jesus is such a central part of your story, and in the book, the Sunday school answer is Jesus. But the question is, how in the world did you navigate this? And I just want to point out something I read in the book that was just this wince of, oh, my gosh, the grief, anticipating how you told the story because the reader knows what's going to happen. But as it unfolds, you talked about how when you and your husband Matt were dating, before you got married, you told the story of how you said to him, when I have a little girl, my first girl is going to be named Bridget Faith. And how did you grieve? There's certainly a life that is lost, a precious life, but all of the infinite hopes that we have opening packages on Christmas morning. And I wrote a poem once about scattered Cheerios on the floor with melted cheese sticks, like, just what I saw in my friend's cars. And just all of that words are lacking. How did you navigate that? Yeah. Well, coming back to her name, Bridget Faith. So it means strongest Faith. Bridget means strength. And so there was a moment in our pregnancy. I was 19 weeks, and we had done the gender reveal. We found out that she was a girl. And so at that moment, we. We knew that there were complications. We knew that stillbirth was a likely outcome. We were, of course, praying that that was not going to be the outcome. But we very much knew, given the state of my body and how things were progressing, that that could happen. And so I Felt like, well, do we still give her that name? You know, if she does not come home with us and we don't get to raise her and have Christmas with her and. And have her with us on earth? And I really felt the Lord just convicted me. That's her name. Regardless of. Of if she lives on earth or in heaven. That's your daughter. That's your first daughter. That's going to be her name and the beauty of it through the ministry and everything, because in a sense, I felt like, well, if I give her that name and she dies, I'm losing that name. And I really think that the Lord has switched my understanding that Bridget wasn't a loss. We didn't lose her. We know where she is. She's in heaven. But she was a gain to our family because she's an eternal being. She's human with the soul that lives forever with Jesus in heaven. She has become a part of our kingdom family. And so she's not a loss, she's a gain. And I think the beautiful thing about starting a ministry in her memory, in the book and the podcast and all the different ways I get to talk about her life, is her name has left my lips every single day since she was born. I did not lose her name either. In fact, more people in the world know her name because of all the things that have happened in her memory through the ministry that I've had the chance to share her name. And so it's beautiful how the Lord honored that conviction to say, we're going to trust you and surrender her life and her name to you. We're not going to change her name based on an outcome. I was so touched by, along those lines, how you shared that you and Matt said something like knowing that what the outcome could be to move forward with the gender reveal, to have a cake that was pink on the inside. And the words were something like, we will never regret not celebrating the life of our daughter. And that was just so courageous. It was like bold hope that was there, that regardless of the outcome, we're not going to just let our heart shrivel up, talk about that decision. Yeah. Well, first of all, you have an incredible memory. That was an exact quote from my husband that he said, we're going. We'll never regret celebrating her life because after we found out her gender, that was the same appointment with our high risk doctor that they told us. The hemorrhage is growing and she's becoming further and further growth restricted. When by the time she was born, she was about Four weeks growth restricted. So she was so tiny that they wouldn't have been able to save her had she even been born alive. And so. So we came back with this horrible prognosis and this sadness. And I'm coming home and I'm like, well, we're having a girl, but are we going to ever bring her home? And I was just feeling so broken and so sad over this, and my husband. And so I was thinking, well, should we still have our friends and family over and continue on with this celebration of life? And that's when my husband said that no matter what happens, I mean, God is sovereign, her days are numbered. Whatever happens, we're never going to regret that. And I'm so grateful that he encouraged us to do that, because that day was one of the best and happiest moments of my pregnancy. Was just celebrating that this is our daughter. We love her so much. She's alive right now in my tummy, and we're going to celebrate her. The pictures that we have, the joy of my family, their faces when they saw that it was going to be a little girl, it just. There was so much joy and hope in that moment, even in the midst of such uncertainty. Wow. That leads me to the chapter that you wrote. And you have a really, I thought, helpful introduction at the start of the book. How to read the book. And who needs to know how to read a book, right? But it was actually very helpful because one of the first things that stood out was you said, you don't have to start this at the beginning, although I would recommend that people read the beginning. You can just move to, like, chapter five, if that's what strikes you. And it almost has a. Here's the topic that I'm wrestling with right now. So each of the chapters has a name and then kind of the issues that that addresses. For example, the chapter about sitting with Jesus was being in a place of overwhelming sadness. So talk about how right from the beginning, you invite women to. To bring their overwhelming sadness to Jesus and contrasting that with what I hope is still not out there a lot. But I suspect it is where people are often encouraged to just trust Jesus and get over it. You know that, yes, you should grieve, but it's time to move on. So why is it important to sit with him in the grief? Yeah, well, I firmly believe that we cannot find healing without grieving and feeling our emotions and the sadness if we try to just be strong and get over it and move on. And certainly that is the culture's message for Grieving people is we want you to be back to normal. We want you to be back to your old self. We don't feel comfortable sitting with someone who's so sad. And it's definitely a pressure from the culture, but also internally ourselves, pain is painful. And I know that's such an obvious thing to say out loud, but we don't like to feel pain. And so even our within ourselves, we're saying, well, I don't like this feeling, so I'm going to try to numb that feeling or distract myself or be busy. And I certainly have done all of those things. I even good things can become distractions of pouring myself into ministry or whatnot to avoid feeling what I'm feeling. And you really have to take a step back and say, I really need time to lament. I really need time to feel the weight of the sadness and the emotion. I need to lay it at the feet of Jesus, and I need to welcome him and invite him into that place. And he's always going to be there. He's always going to show up. He's never going to leave your side. And I think that's so important from the very beginning, and that's why it's in the first chapter, is that if we don't have this time to grieve and we don't give ourselves space and permission to do so, we will not find healing. In fact, we're just going to push these things down and they're going to keep coming out, and it's just going to exacerbate over time this. This healing journey that the Lord wants from us. But we really have to surrender and say, okay, Lord, even though this feels so messy and so sad, and I don't like facing these dark, hard emotions. It feels like I don't know if I'm going to get out of this. I don't see hope at the end of the tunnel. But knowing, no, Jesus is in the darkness of the tunnel with me, and he's going to lead me out because he's the good Shepherd. Jesus is in the darkness that contrasts so much of what we often think, right? That when we somehow work our way out of the darkness, that Jesus is there. And, you know, God is so holy that he can't look upon sin. But he sure seems to do that a lot with the incarnation and this side of life. It reminds me of Psalm 139 that says, Even the darkness is not dark to you, for the night is as bright as the day in your own darkness, because you talked about in the book, how many women struggle with a sense of feeling abandoned by God. The darkness that you walked through, did you struggle with feeling abandoned by God? Absolutely, I did, yeah. Especially during my pregnancy with her, when we basically found out about the subchoric hemorrhage and I was put on bed rest, my husband had to go back to work, my friends and family were at work. So I was alone in a bed all day every day for 11 weeks. And during that time, I'm just crying out to the Lord, praying, please heal this subchemen. It can heal itself and absorb back into your body and there's no complications for a baby. And so I'm praying, lord, let that be so. Let that be the outcome. Let her be full term and healthy and have life. And. And so as the weeks went on and all these doctor's appointments, it just. The hemorrhage is growing larger. She's becoming growth restricted. Just felt like, you're not answering these prayers. Why would you want that for us? My husband and I, we. We conceived her in marriage and we're wanting to follow you, Jesus, and raise her to be a follower of Jesus. Like, how could you want this for me? And obviously that's a very flawed way of thinking. And I talk about the errors in my theology of, oh, if we're a follower of Jesus, we just expect him to bless us and that we won't go through hard times. But certainly as I was walking through this, I thought, you're not answering these prayers. How could you want this? Are you punishing me? Do you not love me? Have you abandoned me? And I just felt so forsaken in that moment. But interestingly enough, once she was born and I laid eyes on this just perfect, beautiful little girl, his peace, just like as the verse says, surpassed all understanding. And I felt this peace and love and security of she is with you and I will see, see her again, and I will spend eternity with her. Thousands and thousands of years. And I think that was my turning point. When I went home with the empty nursery and I was on the floor and I just cried out to God and I surrendered to him and I said, okay, Lord, if I believe this is true, if I believe I'm going to see her in heaven and I'm getting that truth from the word of God, from the Bible, then I'm all in for everything that it says. And that was a huge turning point for me and just a shift of saying, I'm going to trust you in this instead of seeing you as the cause of this that I believe you are good and that you. You don't desire for babies to die. You're actually broken and weeping over this because you hate death. You hate death so much that you sent your son to overcome it for us. I'm so glad you brought that up now. And I'm so glad that at the end of the book, I think it was in one of the appendixes or appendices that you brought up, like, errors. And one of them, you know, it's that idea, well, God needs more angels in heaven. Or God, you know, allowed your baby to die for some higher purpose. And the part. The problem with that Second one, Romans 8, 28, is that there's an aspect, right, where he does use all suffering for good, but that God is not the author of evil, he's not the author of pain, he's not the author of death. And you just said outright, God hates death. You said it in the book, you said it now. And that's so, so, so important. I also love and appreciate how you talked about all of the grief. The moment that she was born, you felt this perfect peace, but then you went home and cried out, so the wrestling still continued. That perfect peace didn't mean, like, you took a spiritual benzodiazepine where, you know, you just felt peace from this chemical. You continue to wrestle. And that brings up this. This mixture of joy and sorrow, which also is a chapter in the book, that somehow those two can happen at times simultaneously or like a seesaw where you go back and forth. So faith doesn't mean that you're handling it well and that you're somehow getting through this quickly or that there's a template for what good grief looks like. Faith is I can be in this mess and feel all of it. It might be joy, it might be sorrow at any given moment. Just comment about that joy. Sometimes sorrow dichotomy. Well, certainly the peace of Jesus is not in a vacuum here on earth. It will eventually be in heaven when we're in a place without sin and death and brokenness. But we currently live in a very broken world and very broken bodies with sin and evil and death. And so the Holy Spirit and Jesus can give us his peace, but it's not in a vacuum. There's other feelings. And so that didn't mean that I wasn't still grieving, that I still, still wasn't experiencing pain and sorrow and walking through my human emotions and a rightful response to death. You know, that's the other thing is these. When I talk To a mom, a mom that's just lost a baby, I'm saying your baby is worthy of being grieved. Like, I validate you in your grief because they were made in the image of God. They had an eternal soul, and continue, will continue to live forever in heaven with Jesus. And. And so you are validated in feeling the way you're feeling. And it doesn't. A grief, the having gratitude or feeling joy again, doesn't cancel out that grief. As you said in the chapter that you're referring to is called holding Both. And it's just this, we can have joy and sorrow together. We can be grateful for the blessings that God has given us and grieve over the things that are broken and the losses in our life. And those things are not. They can coexist together. They don't have to cancel each other out. And I share a very special, specific story in there, as pretty much every chapter opens with a very vulnerable story of how I walked that part out in my life and then kind of goes into that biblical theology and then practical wisdom. But so many moms that are walking this journey have said, you know, someone will say to them, well, you should just be grateful that you can get pregnant again, or you can be grateful that you have living children. And it's like, well, I am grateful that I have living children, but I am very much grieving this baby that I. That I lost. And that doesn't have to cancel each other out. You can hold both of those feelings at the same time. Yeah. And again, I think that's what faith is, is to be able to hold two things that seem to contradict. And somehow in the middle of those two differing realities, something new emerges. That seems to be how Jesus has worked in my life. A number of your chapters address really specific issues. One is helping, and I keep saying moms, but that would also include dads, because I don't think anywhere in the title it says for moms. So it's definitely written by a mom for moms, but it's very applicable to dads and couples. And my prayer is that couples would walk through. Through this together. But throughout the book, there are times where I say mama, because I'm trying to relate directly to the mama's heart, because that's from my own perspective. But my husband read this book and he said there was so much that he gained from it. And even people who have read the book that have not lost a baby, just the theology of suffering, has been helpful. But yes, this is certainly for grieving dads as well. Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. You addressed the question to. To those that are wondering where their baby is. And as Christians, we know where that baby is. And you just put forth the answer again of heaven and Jesus, but unpack that. Yeah. So there's the current heaven where believers go, if they pass away. Right now, they would go to the heaven that's there currently. But the Bible also very much talks about a coming heaven or the new heaven, the new earth. And that's talked a lot about in Revelation and it's alluded to in Isaiah and the Old Testament. But essentially, the new heaven, the new earth, will be a physical earth where we are reunited with Jesus and God the Father. We will he, it says he will dwell with us in that eternal state. And so right now, the current heaven, there's not as much information about it, but we know from Jesus's statement to the criminal that he said, today you will be with me in paradise. We know that it is paradise, that it's full of his glory, that right now Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. And so, you know, there's references that, you know to be away from your body is to be with the Lord. And so we know that the current heaven is this beautiful paradise full of the Lord's presence and goodness. And so I take great comfort in knowing that's where Bridget is right now, her soul. But it won't be until the new earth, the new heaven, where she will be resurrected with her glorified, immortal body. And same for me. And I think that's the heaven that just really excites me, is thinking one day we will be in physical bodies on a very familiar earth, but an earth that's not corrupted by sin, in a place where we will never, ever have to say goodbye

again. And that's the Beauty of Revelation 21: 23:32

4, you know, no more death, no more crying, no more pain, for the old order of things has passed away. And that's the heaven that I really focus on in this chapter is that's such a hope to think of. One day we'll walk there and be with our babies. And that's what our hearts yearn for when we get still. That kind of picture is not something I have to believe as much as I have to feel, because it gets stirred up in my imagination, both in how you describe it here and in the rich, poetic language. You also addressed the question, which is a fascinating question, and you. You tried to answer it biblically of when we see our children in Heaven, how old will they be? So number one, why did you include that? Is that a question that people bring to you? And number two, what, what did you discover from Scripture? Yeah, I think it's something that moms and dads who know their babies in heaven just automatically you picture. What do they look like? What are they going to be like when we are reunited with them? Are they going to be the size they were when they were born into heaven? So in my case, bridget was only 13 ounces. She wasn't even a pound. She was very tiny. And sometimes I think of her that way because that's how I saw her physical body. But then other times I imagine her as a full term infant, the size she would have been if she would have been due, you know, on her due date. But other times I see her as this little girl, you know, with a bruise, brunette, with green eyes like me, just running around on streets of gold. And all of those versions of her excite me. But the Bible is not clear as to what age she will be or what age any believer is going to be when any of us go to heaven. The Bible doesn't state. And so I just say in my book, there's mystery. We can't claim to know one way or the other. It's okay to think about it and to have your idea of what it might be, but whatever it is, it's going to be good. And I think that's where I've had to land, is that when I see Bridget for the first time, you know, in where she's alive and fully alive, and I know I'm going to be there with her forever when I see her. I'm not going to be disappointed in what size she is, what age she is. You know, the other question a lot of moms will ask me is, do children age over time in eternity? You know, and what would that even look like? And it's, it's so hard to answer that because first of all, the Bible doesn't state that. But also, what is time like in eternity? Are there years? You know, and so it's really hard to think, well, maybe they are different stages, but we can't really speculate that. And so I just try to be very biblical in saying, here's what we know, here's what we don't know. But we can look forward with hope because God is good, his nature is good, and we're going to be surprised and just delighted in what we find when we get there. I love that we don't know but it will be a celebration. Let's come back to one more of the questions. And it seems to me that this is a big one. And that's when a mom can't forgive herself. And when there's blaming that I did something wrong or there's something I should have done that I didn't do, basically, that I'm the cause of my child dying. That's something that you wrestled with personally. I did wrestle with that personally. And through leading support groups in person and online, through the ministry of Bridget's cradles, I have yet to meet a mom who hasn't had some sort of feeling as, oh, what if I would have done this? Or what if I would have noticed this sooner? Or if I would have noticed that the baby wasn't kicking that day, Or I shouldn't have eaten that, or gone on that long of a car ride or moved that day. I mean, there's so many different stories that I've heard. And for me, it wasn't necessarily one thing I did or didn't do. It was more that the enemy used the brokenness of my body and things outside of my control, within my body to basically have this resentment toward my body. Like, my body failed Bridget, and therefore, if my body failed Bridget, then it feels like I failed her as a mom. And so I struggled a lot with that identity of, like, am I a good mom? And that's something I really wanted to set straight with Biblical truth in my book was that the moms that have walked through this and they're asking themselves these questions, I just always tell them, you are a good mom. If you could have saved your baby, you would have. But there are simply things outside of our control because we live in a very broken world and broken bodies and. And we have to forgive ourselves and give ourselves grace for that, because there's things that we cannot control. So thank you for all of the sharing, and may every listener get a copy of this book and read not just about your journey and all that you offer to women and to dads, but to learn about the ministry as well. And so many reasons why I've been excited to talk to you. And I get to visit your ministry center in Wichita when I'm there at the end of next month with Brian Becker at the Apprentice Gathering. And I can't wait for that. But your grief has been turned to good, and not just a little bit of good, but to a stunning amount of good, which translates to people's lives being touched and encouraged and moms and dads who have lost a child, who are comforted, who are given hope. I'm guessing that many come to Jesus. You know, they hear this good news, that God is there in their suffering, that he loves them, that Christ is with us. So you started this ministry, and I want you to unpack that story. And at some point, I'm going to just comment on this gift that you gave me that I'm holding in my hands, and I'm going to hold it while you tell the story. So how did Bridget's cradles get started? What is it that you do? And to whom do you minister to? Yeah. So the little cradle that you're holding all started because of my mom, Teresa Golick. So during the time that I was on bed rest, as I mentioned, we were going to doctors and they were giving us bad news. And after one of those visits, it was actually a hospitalization, another one that I had been on during that time. And the doctor said, we really don't know that your body's going to be able to stay pregnant much longer. And so my mom went home in which she was trying to knit a little blanket for her granddaughter. She just thought, if she is born early and soon, like the doctors are expecting, I want to have a little blanket for her. So she made this little blanket and mint green yarn, the same color as my blankie when I was a child. And she made this, and she was holding it, and she thought, well, how would I swaddle such a tiny baby in this blanket? And that's when God gave her the idea to knit the sides up and turn it into a cradle. And surprisingly, that had not been done before. And she packed that in her hospital bag. She didn't even tell me she had made it because, of course, she was still praying that we wouldn't need this cradle, that Bridget would be full term. So she had this in the hospital bag. And on the day that Bridget was born, which was October 27, 2nd, 2014, the hospital staff swaddled Bridget in a traditional hospital blanket, the ones that you're probably accustomed to seeing. And being that Bridget was so small, 13 ounces, she just kind of got swallowed in there. We couldn't see her. We couldn't feel her weight. It was really hard to kind of handle her in that. And my mom placed her in the cradle, and it just changed everything for us. It just brought such comfort. Both my husband and I could pick her up and kiss her. We were able to hold her on her chest. We had 24 hours with her in the hospital. In her cradle. Both of our families came and we got to pass her around and they all got to hold her and we got pictures with her in the cradle. And just in the midst of such trauma and heartbreak, the cradle just really provided this dignified, loving way to hold our daughter. And it gave us a comfort. And of course, and we say this all the time in the ministry, you know, the cradle was a temporary comfort, but the gospel is the eternal comfort. But it really reminded us that we're loved and that my mom was showing us this love. And so now that we donate the cradles to 1600 hospitals in all 50 states and send out 30,000 cradles and memory keepsakes a year. Wow. The idea is that we're just extending Christ's love in this dark, dark place. In the worst day of these parents lives when they're not expecting to go to the hospital and leave without their baby. They have nothing to put their baby in. No clothes that are the size of this little tiny baby, that in this dark moment they are extended an act of love. And this little cradle is hopefully that that's what they feel is they feel seen and loved in the middle of this. And although that cradle is not going to provide the ultimate comfort, hopefully it points them then to our ministry. And as we share the gospel, they meet Jesus. Because Jesus is the only one that can actually heal their hearts and give them what they desire, which is to be with their baby again. Wow. You are a woman on a mission and a woman overflowing with purpose and passion for people that are grieving and for God's comfort. It's really beautiful as you share all of that. I'm not sure what people are thinking when they think of cradle. I was, I was shocked when I saw this. When I think of a cradle, I think of something wooden or metal. I think of a crib almost, but where, you know, a 18 to 20 inch baby gets laid into. And you gave this to me as a gift. And my eyes just welled up with tears because. Because it's the size of a small pencil case. It's the size of a child's mitten. And this one's purple. It's knit with yarn and on the outside there's. Well inside there's a knit heart and on the heart there's a flower attached and it just says Bridget's cradle's parent keepsake. The baby is placed inside this little cozy pencil case size. And then there's something that looks like the instep part of a sock that then is the blankie that goes over the top. And it looks like it's made for a tiny doll. And it's just so, so striking, the reality of the tiny, tiny, tiny life. And yet it is a life and it's the life that God gives. Just like God gave birth. Bridget, faith to you and to Matt, that it matters so deeply. And I'm also struck that I have complained too often about the church and how Christians are causing so much havoc on planet Earth and how people, Christians are the problem. And people will say, I don't have a problem with God, it's my problem with Christians. But to remind people that sometimes it's not in what happens in a mega church, it's not what happens on a Christian podcast with a best selling author. It's not the glorious spectacular Christian things. It's a little knit cradle the size of a pencil case that is there for a mom and a dad that have just lost their baby. And then this card that's attached that talks about the ministry and it quotes Psalm 139, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. There's the website. It's very tastefully done. There's no bragging here about this. There's a little note to the families and then it talks about the Cradled in Hope podcast and the online monthly support group. So as we wrap up, will you talk about the podcast? Who is that for? How do people access it? And then the support group where people can find that and who that's for as well. Yes. Well, I would love to share a little bit about the cradle as well. So as you described, it's knit and crocheted. It's very small. They're usually about 7 to 10 inches in length. They are designed for babies that are born in the second trimester of pregnancy. So anywhere between 13 and 24 weeks. We have memory keepsakes that we get to families who have lost a baby in the first or third trimester, even after birth. So we acknowledge loss from conception on any gestation. But inside the little tapered blanket that you mentioned is there to place over the baby's body because a lot of times babies that are born that early, their skin is torn or bruised, and so it just gives them dignity so that the families can take photos of their baby in the cradle and eventually very dignified way. And then the little heart that you mentioned, every single cradle comes with a heart or a square and that's the parent keepsake and that's intended for them to keep that. Because some families choose to bury their baby in the cradle, as we did. We had Bridget inside her cradle, inside her casket. And so the, the keepsake is that it was something that was present, that touched their baby, that was there. And many families will tell us that they hold on to that, they sleep with it, they carry it in their purse. Other families will keep the cradle as a keepsake as well. Put it in a shadow box. But essentially those are the different parts. And there's a cross at the foot of the cradle and that's to show that our ultimate comfort and faith is in a cradle. But to your point, as you shared about Christianity and you know, just the unlikelihood of this little cradle bringing Christ's love, I think back to the original cradle and how Jesus showed up in this world. You know, that correlation just came to me as you were saying. That is like we did not expect for the savior of the world to be born in a manger in a little cradle. Yeah. And so in the same way, it's like this little cradle, it's just made of Yarn, probably cost $2 to make. But this is an extension of Christ's love of saying, I'm here with you in the brokenness of this situation and I want to show you love and comfort and I want to walk through this with you. And so to your point, the tag that has the Hope Online and the podcast and information about my book, it's leading them to have a relationship with Jesus. Not in a way that's forceful or that is saying this is what you should do or need to do, but just saying, hey, this is a community of people who are going to love on you, who are going to see you in your pain and walk with you and cry with you. But yes, we are going to put point you to the hope that we have because we know this is true. And so our Hope Online, every month we have a Zoom online meeting. I lead that. And so anyone, no matter where they live, can log in and find Christ centered community. And it's very just raw. Like we share our stories and we talk about our babies, we talk about the honest parts of grieving, blaming ourselves and the hurtful things people do and say in the midst of grief. We talk about feeling abandoned by God. We're not shy of, and we're not afraid to bring those honest emotions and those questions and doubts that we may have. And then the podcast is called Cradled in Hope, the same name as my book and the podcast we have monthly episodes. We have over 60 episodes you can go back and listen to. A lot of them are interviews that I'm interviewing another grieving mom or dad or couple. But right now we're actually working through the podcast book where I'm going a chapter. Every single episode is a chapter of the book and walking through the book. Wow, that's awesome. So people could theoretically listen to all those episodes and hear the audio version of the book. So it's not the audio version because I did go down to Dallas and I recorded the audio version. This is like a 30 minute overview of it. And then it's like me kind of expanding on the topics, but also kind of sharing why I put it in and giving some extra content. But it wouldn't really replace reading the book or listening to the book. Yeah, it's like your professorial commentary on it. That's awesome. So the website is bridgetscradles.com? Yes. And I just cannot commend the ministry enough, people, if you're listening, you may not have had the loss of a child, but chances are you know someone who has. And so I want to encourage you to get a copy of this book to pass it on, to give a copy to your church, to your pastor. It's called Cradled in trusting Jesus to heal your heart as he holds your baby in heaven. Our guest today has been the author of this fine book, Ashley Opliger, founder of Bridges Cradles. It's really been a blessing to talk with you and to know you. Thank you so much for what you're doing. Thank you so much, Michael.