I know I should write beautiful words today.
I know I should be saying how good God is, how merciful, how loving (because He is)
but, I’m not going to do what I “should” do.
I am not going to write flowery prose with an uplifting message.
I am going to be, instead, BRUTALLY HONEST.
Because I am angry. I am annoyed. I am confused.
Five year old Ben Sauer died on Tuesday night.
In spite of all the prayers. In spite of all the “positive” words, thoughts, prophecies..
In spite of thousands upon thousands of people pulling, rooting, encouraging him, his family..
All for Naught.
At least in the physical.
He is gone. HOME. In heaven (no doubt)
I’m sure my sister welcomed him.
She will love that sweet little boy. (Exactly the kind of child she doted so much on in her short life on earth.)
For that I am glad..But otherwise,
I don’t get it.
I was going to come here with a different sort of bent in what I was writing..Kind of hateful actually.
I was going to say ;
Why allow a sweet, 5 year old boy, to die of cancer while a man, over 50, who has lived a full life (in and out of the spotlight) who is also fighting cancer, is allowed to continue on?………..
Why let cancer take the CHILD while a full grown MAN continues to win his battle against it?..
Then I read a blog post by the wife of that man.
And she is questioning God too..
Not as to why her husband lives and Ben does not..(of course not!)
but why God did not say yes to all those prayers..why He allowed an innocent child to die when we begged, petitioned, prayed so so hard…
Those hard questions..I totally get it.
It made me remember when our son, Nathan, was in the PICU as a baby.
We were told he would never come home. But he did. After two months of pain and miracles- He Came Home.
And he still lives here..happy, healthy, whole..
But, as for the rest of the children in the PICU at the time?..
They DIED.
Almost every- single- one.
And I remember them.
I remember Jase.
He was his mother’s “miracle baby”. The child they prayed for so long who finally came..
but, was born with half his internal organs OUTSIDE his body..Horrible.
They tried to “fix” him..Prayed for him. Kept vigil..But, in the end, he passed anyway.
I remember Sarah.
The baby girl of a young teen couple. Born with heart defects.
They were able to wait til she was almost a year old to give her surgery; to allow her body to strengthen.
But after surgery she caught an infection. It shut her system down. She died days before Nathan was released from the PICU.
I remember the little girl in the bed next to Nathans.
She was about 12. Just keeled over one day. Diabetic.
She died while I sat beside Nathans bed in the PICU. Behind the drawn curtain I heard her parents wail..smelled death..
Not something I will ever forget.
There were more.
In the 2 months time Nathan was in Children’s they came and went (by way of the morgue) over and over.
Even on the “recovery” floor when our son was transferred upstairs..
A 19 year old women with a new heart valve..crashed from a blood clot the day before they were going to send her home. Gone.
A little boy with what his grandma called a “prune belly” who shared Nathan’s room.
No working kidneys. Intestines all in knots and disjointed. Smiley kid who liked to watch Disney channel in-between his dialysis treatments.
His grandma knitted Nathan a pair of booties one day while we sat there and chatted.
I still have them.
I found her grandsons name on the “angel wall” on the Children’s Hospital website a month later..Gone.
And still, that is not all.
Princess Diana died two days before Nathan was sent home with us. Car crash, Gone.
And then the day of our departure, Mother Theresa..Gone.
It felt like the whole world was in mourning.
Death surrounded my child in those dark days.
Death ran rampant in the hospital rooms and in the streets of every city it seemed.
But it could not take my son. (Praise God!)
But, you cannot walk through that “valley of the shadow”,( no matter how you come out), without asking … “WHY?”
Why all those innocent lives snuffed out while evil men still live for another day?
Why all those children and not my son?
Why? Why? Why?!
I’m asking Why today as well. Ever mindful of my blessings, OUR blessings..
But not understanding the ways of my God..
All powerful. All knowing. Not weak. Able to do anything.
And yet, He chooses to not intervene in what seems to be the most opportune of moments.
Yes, Mindy Sauer’s Blog inspired and will continue to inspire many.
Yes, Ben’s brief life will, no doubt, be encouraging for years to come..
But he is still..GONE.
On to another world, another life, while those who loved him are left behind..to wait, to grieve, to wonder..
I believe my God is still good.
I believe in His Love..
But, I still don’t understand His “ways”
and I don’t think I ever will..
“For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9
Destination: GRACE 