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My son was born with catastrophic brain damage. In the first 12 to 24 hours, we were faced with constant updates and changing information about whether he would live, and if he did live, what his life might look like. When it became very clear that any "life" he had would be entirely in a hospital, with a feeding tube, never to open his eyes, hear my voice, respond to any of us, obviously, my heart and my dreams for life with him were shattered.

Oh Mandy, I wish I had a wise answer, or even some thoughts that might hold bits of wisdom...but all I can say is "Yes, me too, I understand."

Dear heart:

I don't think God was any more impressed with her reasoning than you were. What a garbage response, attributing a nasty lie to God and disparaging your daughter's worth in one feel swoop. How dare she.

God doesn't love us because we're perfect. He loves us because he is. And he loves that darling, priceless, wonderful, beautiful, unique, carefully formed, delightful little sweetheart your womb grew for so many months.

It's always the Pharisee types who attribute their own ugly, sad views to God to make themselves feel better at everyone else's expense.

"Never say that everything happens for a reason. Never try to mollify them with talk of angels and meant-to-be's. Never say that God works in mysterious ways."

Yes, yes, and yes!

I'm a follower of Christ, but every time (and there were many times) someone said something stupid like this, I had the decidedly un-Christian urge to punch them in the nose.

hey Christy,
I totally understand what you mean,i also dont know if my relationship with God will ever be the same. Sure,i wasnt going to church as much as i used to,i was concentrating too much on my unborn son maybe idolising him a bit but can God be so jealous of an unborn child that he'd take him away?

The God's Will thing is so yicky. The only person who said such a thing to me was my husband's grandmother. I understand that it is partly her way of coping, but I made myself feel better by sending her a copy of Rabbi Kushner's book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." He talks about the possibility of a God that is infinitely good but perhaps not in charge of everything that happens--the difference between random fate and God's goodness.

My husband's grandmother alluded to the same thing--something like, "God has a plan and there must have been some reason for this." I don't know if she meant a specific physical reason or what, but I bristled at it because it sounded just like the kind of words I remember people saying when I was younger and one of my cousins had a miscarriage, words I accepted at the time but now I completely disagree with: "These things happen for a reason... there must have been something wrong with the baby..."

I've got nothing signitficant to add, just wanted to say i'm thinking of you. I have found this issue very hard as has everyone above. For me, it's the newborn babies that are the hardest. That and the birth announcements. I have one baby in our close social circles that was born about 5 months after we lost our Salome: another 3rd daughter to the family, same Obst, same hospital, VERY different outcome ie they got a healthy baby to take home. That whole situation was fraught for me.

Dear Glowers,

Count me in as another who hates the whole "god's will" baloney. I can see how your friend's announcement would sting. It is basically say: "god thinks we are more special than you, apparently." Another similar thing that I hate is when people feel a need to tell me about their traumatic pregnancies... where their baby lived. ("My pregnancy was so terrible, but I am such a good and special and heroic person that my baby lived"). Just another way to make me feel like a failure.....