“While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,’’ he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.” Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”………….Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.” —Luke 8: 49-55

I often get stuck in a thinking pattern about miracles. It goes like this: I know God can do miracles, He healed a friend’s baby, He raised this child in the Bible, He didn’t heal my child. Round and round I go. 

For the last three years I’ve struggled with my faith. I’ve moved in one direction to the next, constantly searching for the path that will lead me back to my unwavering faith in God. I’ve never found it, and I often wonder if I will spend the rest of my life searching. Is this destiny? 

When I was still pregnant with Logan, already knowing his fatal diagnosis, I was introduced to a family who had a similar situation; their daughter wasn’t expected to live. I watched her birth video and cried and hated their family; she didn’t die, but lived. I watched their miracle unfold in front of my eyes. I knew my miracle wouldn’t come. My prayers switched from saving my child to let him die quickly and peacefully. I begged and pleaded with God to not make me watch my child suffer through death. Did he suffer? I’ll never know, I tell myself he didn’t. We showed him all the love we could and I put faith in the medicine for taking care of the rest. 

When I sit and think about how my relationship with God has been torn apart, I read things like the verse above. I hear of someone’s miracle. And I have a bad taste in my mouth. Why them? Why did MY son have to die and why did I have to watch him fade away like I did? Why do some moms get no time? Why do some moms have a plump baby who just stopped breathing? Is it not bad enough that I knew he was going to die? That there was no chance of survival? I had to suffer. I had to watch my husband suffer. I had to watch Wyatt suffer and try to navigate a territory he knew nothing about. I had to watch the innocence be stolen from my 8 year old. Why were we made to suffer in such a way?

I think a lot of my distrust with God comes from that fact. He provides miracles all the time. He intervenes in lots of lives daily. Why did he choose not to step in? What makes us different? We are saints. We aren’t special people. We haven’t done anything great with our lives. We haven’t become prophets. What good could have God had planned to come out of this tragedy? 

Instead our lives are tainted. No matter where we go in life, someone always finds out we that we lost a child. And inevitably we get treated different. People look at us different. They walk around us different. They talk to us different. We no longer are ‘us’, we are overshadowed by Logan’s death. Our faith is wavering. We weren’t pushed towards God but away. I fight everyday to hold on to the faith that I do have. I put on a brave face when I talk to my son about God, so that he doesn’t follow down my path of distrust. My husband wanders lost. 

So why do other people get a miracle, but we didn’t? My bible study this week asks me to think about plans that I had but God replaced with better ones, or how has praying for God’s will to be done blessed me. I have no answers. I try to think back before Logan, I suppose I could be grateful Wyatt didn’t die when he had heart surgery. But nothing overshadows Logan. What we went through. 

Is is so wrong to think, I want God to say sorry. To tell me that my miracle was not greater than his plan? To tell me my son didn’t suffer. To tell me that he is living a life of joy and content in Heaven. To tell me that my son knows who I am. That he watches me. That we have some connection other than watching him die. Because I feel empty. I see Wyatt everyday, our connection is ever present. Logan’s is gone. Connected only through pain and suffering. And then gone. All I have is pictures, and fading memories. What does Logan have? 

I’m told that I have to accept God for all of who he is. Not just the good parts, but the awful things as well. I can say without doubt, that I don’t think God killed my son, if that makes sense. I think Logan dying was an effect of this evil world, but God simply didn’t intervene. It’s the intervening part, that I cannot reconcile with.