Sunday, August 03, 2008

Deadly water hazards

We were hit with hard news yesterday - our scout leader had his 17 month old son die in a tragic drowning accident. It seems they returned from a day at church, put the child to bed and the mom lay down for a quick nap herself. When she awoke later in the evening, she checked on her child who was missing from bed. It seems the little one wandered into the bathroom and turned on the water to the bath. It is a recessed tub, so once he got in he could not get out and subsequently drowned.
I can not fathom the guilt mom must be feeling, nor the absolute despair she must be experiencing. To lose your child in such a sudden way (any way for that matter) is heart rending. As a parent, you can't help but reflect on what you would do if this happened to your own family. How would your marriage suffer? Would the guilt tear the relationship apart? What about the siblings, will they blame themselves?
It's funny (in an odd way), I know of several families who lost young children to disease or accident. Each of these families are very religious, with their beliefs being that their God is a kind and loving god. How do they maintain their faith when it seems that God is against them, that he seems to be a cruel vengeful god?

3 comments:

Envoy-ette said...

I really feel for that family. I would find it hard to go on. As far as God being cruel...that's not the case at all. Remember, we all are going to die of something and none of us are promised to make it to old age. Death is part of life and we don't get out of this world alive. It doesn't ease the pain of a child's death and seems cold to say...but thats how life on this planet works. Remember, when it rains...it rains on all of us, not just those people who are cruel..but on the good decent people too. Same with the sunshine...even rotten people enjoy the sun when it comes out which is why good things happen to bad people, or why bad things happen to good people. Rain or sunshine, we all experience it regardless of our behavior.

Kelly said...

When I first read this post the song “Held” by Natalie Grant came to mind. The lyrics of the song say, “Who told us we’d be rescued? What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares? We’re asking why this happens. To us, who have died to live. It’s unfair.” The chorus of the song goes like this, “This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life. And you survive. This is what it is to be loved, and to know that the promise was when everything fell, we’d be held.” While I pondered exactly what to comment I recieved a devotional on this same thing and it even refrenced the song!"Despite our level of faith, there are times in life when we doubt if God is really watching over us or our loved ones. We question why things happen that seem unfair. We wonder what glory He could possibly derive from painful circumstances. It takes great faith to believe that God does understand, and He wants us to know that He is always there.”

kilgorsky said...

What a tragedy.