Yesterday didn’t start out that well. Bess had me up a lot in the night. I didn’t sleep wonderfully and had, unaccountably, one of those, ‘I’m a rubbish mum days.” I had some lovely friends over in the morning and spent the first twenty minutes of it trying to busy myself sufficiently so that I wouldn’t cry. I just felt very little and vulnerable inside.

I normally do my shopping on-line, but I needed to go to Sainsburys to get some bits and pieces. I felt slightly less heavy-hearted, having had lovely encouragement from my friends, but I still had the shadows of those earlier negative feelings lurking.

I was in the aisle where they keep the ketchup, minding my own business when I noticed a man sidle up to me. I was on my guard. You know what a nutter magnet I am….? I tightened my grip on my trolley. He came very near. He was probably about 75 years old, very sweet and gentle looking. He came even nearer. Then he smiled at me.

‘Have you taken the last one?’ he asked.
I looked into my trolley and again at him. ‘Sorry?’ I said. He repeated his question. ‘Have you taken the last one?’
‘The last what?’ I asked.

‘You appear to have taken the last miracle child. I’ve been looking for one, but you have the only one in the shop.’

I KID YOU NOT. Those were his actual, very words.
I coughed. ‘I beg your pardon?’ I said, slowly, thinking I must have misheard him.

‘My child,’ (no-one has ever called me that but God) he said sweetly, ‘Your baby is a miracle, isn’t she? What’s her name?’ I told him, falteringly, ‘Esther.’
(Esther is indeed a miracle baby, for many reasons.) ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was told I could not have children.’

‘Yes,’ He said. ‘ God had other ideas, Did he not?’ His irish accent and his eyes twinkled together musically.
I was utterly entranced.
He told me proudly about his ten children and 15 grand-children and then paused as he looked again at my sleeping baby.
‘There is something very beautiful about her.’

Now, every mum believes that their baby is special and I am no different. All my children have a unique God-designed plan and purpose that I am excited about. But something about my ministry feels joined up to Esther’s calling too. I sensed this from the beginning. I feel as though she will spiritually stand on my shoulders, that my ‘ceiling’ will somehow be her ‘floor’, if you see what I mean.

The man introduced himself and took me by the hand. ‘You have given me a lot of pleasure today,’ he said. ‘Thank you for having such a special little baby.’
He then went down the aisle and disappeared.

I continued my shopping, gulping back tears, thanking God for his word of encouragement to me. Much needed. At the end of the next aisle, there was John again. He took my hand and pressed a small black stone into it.

‘When I was on holiday at Lourdes, I met a little boy who was very special. He gave me this stone and said, ‘John, I’m giving you my favourite stone, so that you don’t ever forget me.’ He began to well up at the memory. Then he smiled, took the stone back and walked away again.

At the next aisle, there he was again.

His next visual aid was a friendship bracelet given to him by another little child. He pressed it into my hand, telling me he carried it with him to remember her.
This extraordinarily bizarre conversation continued aisle by aisle for the next three aisles.

At the end of the last aisle he said that he had recently been up a mountain with his wife and grandchildren. They had met a little girl and her family on the way up and decided to come down altogether in the tram. She asked him a question, ‘John, can I sit on your lap on the way down?’
‘How do you know I’m called John?’ he asked.
‘I know because my Dad is called John and he has the same cuddle in his laugh that you do, so I knew you were called John too.’

Again his eyes brimmed with tears. Mine followed suit. It seemed only polite.

‘Ems, my child’ he said, ‘little ones are so special. Children don’t do that normally. They don’t ask total strangers to remember them. Your Esther is so very precious. I will never forget meeting her, or meeting you. Just one piece of advice, when she is older and gets cross, don’t try to win her back with clever arguments or words. That won’t work. Just cuddle and hug her. That’s all she will need.’

He turned to walk away, and then said, ‘My child, don’t be stressed. You have made an old man smile.’

I finished my shopping on autopilot. I almost wondered if this man was quite ‘human’. He felt almost angelic. Seriously. What I do know is that God designed me to be in the ketchup aisle in order to meet John and hear His words of peace, love and hope over me and over my daughter’s life. I breathed deeply and praised my Father, yet again for the incredible adventures He gives me.

Sainsburys will never feel quite the same again.