JOHNATHAN DOUGLAS CONKLIN

Hugo McCord

When the ultrasound showed Toby (21 years old) and Mandy (20 years old) that the living baby in Mandy’s womb was afflicted with “trisomy 13,” a fatal malady, they refused to have an abortion. Mandy felt the movements of the baby until a week before he was born dead, August 31, 1999. They named him Johnathan Douglas Conklin.

In sorrow, the family members of Toby and Mandy gathered at the Conklin home (14222 SE Division, #60, Portland, OR 97236) on September 10 for a memorial funeral service, concluding with planting a blue hisbiscus in their front yard.

Thank God, it was only the physical part of the baby that died. Johnathan’s spirit did not die! On the day of his conception, he was nearly invisible, a microscopic cell formed by the internal marriage of two gametes (gameo, to marry) in Mandy’s womb. A spermatozoon (Toby’s male germ cell), swimming in semen, had penetrated the ovum (the egg in Mandy) and fertilized it. At the moment of fertilization, God, “the Father of spirits” (Hebrews 12:7) had sent a spirit from heaven (Zechariah 12:1; Ecclesiastes 12:7) into that tiny human being, called a “zygote” (zugotos, from zugoo, to yoke), making Johnathan’s spirit, his soul, into the “image” of God (Genesis 1:26).

On the day of Johnathan’s death his spirit “returned” (shubh) to God who had given it (‘el ha’elohim ‘asher nethanah, Ecclesiastes 12:7). Johnathan’s spirit (Hebrews 12:23) is also called his soul (Genesis 35:18; Psalm 103:1), and is as immortal as God himself (Matthew 10:28; 1 Peter 1:9; James 1:21; 5:20).

Since the spirit of Jesus on the day that he died went to a place called “Paradise” (Luke 23:43), we believe that the spirit of Johnathan went to Paradise on the day his body died in Mandy’s womb, and on judgment day will go to heaven (1 Peter 1:4). Among the “many” from “the east and the west” who will sit with “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob” in the “kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11), enjoying “everlasting life” (Matthew 25:46), will be Johnathan with Toby and Mandy.

10-7-99