Growing up digesting Disney fairy tales can warp your sense of reality.
There are no unblemished princes or perfect princesses out there. The bad guys don’t always get what they deserve and the good guys don’t always win.
At least not here on earth.
I want the scales to balance, I want the last chapter to wrap up all the loose ends and expose all the secrets. I want to know what happened and why-oh, to know WHY!
But that’s not how it is. I live a messy life with untidy edges.
So do most people.
The Bible doesn’t gloss over the hard places of life. God’s Word doesn’t hide the faults of God’s heroes. His Spirit directed the men who penned the holy pages to tell it all-the good, the bad AND the ugly.
I think sometimes in our desire to demonstrate the power of Christ in our lives we want to tie things up into a perfect package.
I know I do-I want desperately to be able to say that I can see the good in Dominic’s death. I long to be able to point to a finished monument of redeemed pain and restored joy.
But I’m compelled to tell it like it is.
And it is just plain HARD.
But God uses the broken things of this life to display His glory.
Because then there is NO DOUBT as to the Source of strength. He leaves no room for boasting.
He declares His power and faithful love by taking those of us who are weak and stumbling and leading us home, redeemed and victorious.
For look at your own calling as Christians, my brothers. You don’t see among you many of the wise (according to this world’s judgment) nor many of the ruling class, nor many from the noblest families. But God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise; he has chosen what the world calls weak to shame the strong. He has chosen things of little strength and small repute, yes and even things which have no real existence to explode the pretensions of the things that are—that no man may boast in the presence of God. Yet from this same God you have received your standing in Jesus Christ, and he has become for us the true wisdom, a matter, in practice, of being made righteous and holy, in fact, of being redeemed. And this makes us see the truth of scripture: ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
I Corinthians 1:26-31 PHILLIPS
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thelifeididntchoose 
I do know the answer to “why”, at least for my own daughter. Her suffering was enormous, and getting worse by the day. He mental illness was so complex that not one psychiatrist would take her as a patient, fearing lawsuits, no doubt, because they knew she was sick “unto death”. I know why she was allowed to go Home. She kept a journal, hidden in a composition notebook, of which she had many collected through the years, filled with her drawings. One day last Fall, I went into storage and removed these composition notebooks, fearing they would be destroyed (the storage is not heated or cooled). From among them, I chose one (“randomly”). And then I opened it to JUST the “right page”. On those three pages, she had kept a journal beginning in February 2011 that ended February 26. In that journal, she reported that Jesus had appeared to her, spoken to her, told her that her death would not be painful, that He would be there to take her hand, and then baptized her (she had been baptized as an infant); she reported that He said she would have to endure only two more years before this took place. Oh I do believe He spoke to her, I have had a vision of Him, it was the most joyful experience imaginable; but she misunderstood the number “two”, it was not years, it was the day her illness would compel her to take her life, the 2nd day of the 3rd month (“23”), the number I was given during my apparition of the Blessed Mother when I was age five, dying from pneumonia. So at her age 23, on the 2nd day of the 3rd month, her Savior, my Savior, your Savior, took my daughter’s hand, and there was no pain. Why: because of His great love, because of His mercy, because her soul had run its race, she had finished the task put before her at her conception, she had been my beloved child and had received the great blessing of a mother formed by God: me. That is why. There are no accidents, there are no mistakes, there are no coincidences. God knows, and great suffering is often the sign of a victim soul. Perhaps your children, those who read Melanie’s wonderful posts, were among those victim souls, their lives intended to expiate the sins of millions of people who deny God. Think about it.
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Jill, I respect your understanding of your own daughter’s journey and death. I do believe that God and Jesus speak to many people in many different ways and that sometimes certain individuals are given more knowledge than others. I respectfully disagree with your assertion that my son or anyone else’s child has a role to play in the expiation of sins of others. I believe that all sin was paid for in full by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that there is now no condemnation for those who receive His payment for the penalty of sin. If a person denies God and His Christ then they are condemned already-there is no remedy for them after they leave this life. (John 3:16-18). I am glad that you have peace about your daughter’s death. Grace and mercy to you.
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Thank you for your daily encouragement.
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