To a Mother Whose Child Has Died Suddenly
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Dear friend,
It seems very clear to me that from the beginning, the brightness of Heaven lay on your child's life, setting her apart for early translation. Evidently her life was too frail, too ethereal, for earth. She was only lent to you for a little stay.
Another thing, my Dear friend, there is not the least reason why you should chide yourself with any carelessness in the matter. How could you have been more careful than you were? Of course, if the physician had told you the contents of the pills or had marked the bottle so as to indicate their character, and you had then not taken due care, you might have blamed yourself. As it is, there is not a shadow of reason why you should chide or question yourself.
As I said before, her precious life was finished — that is all we know. What a blessed, beautiful life it was! What a ministry of good she wrought in your home, in your life! She left touches of blessings in you which will be in your soul forever. Then, her work being done, she went home.
Think of her stay with you as of a visit of one of God's brightest angels from Heaven, to leave in your home and life holy memories and fragrances, and to speak God's sacred messages to your heart.
As to the manner of her departure, I would raise no questions. All efforts to reason through the logic of the tangle which your mind finds, only makes the perplexity the sorer. You know that your heavenly Father neither does nor permits anything that harms one of his little ones. A doctor was negligent, and his negligence produces a sad result. God does not ordain negligence. Do not think that he does. He does not ordain sin. He ordains only beauty and fidelity.
But here is where God's wisdom and love come in. He takes men's mistakes, negligences, errors, even their sins — and out of all the confusion wrought by them, he brings beauty.
Your child was taken away through the result of a physician's careless act, we will say; but she did not die a moment before God's time for her to go. Her work was done and the time allotted to her completed, and God came down and sweetly bore her away.
My Dear friend, will you not bid your heart to cease its questions and lie down in peace in the Father's bosom? I know you believe in God's love, and know that he has your darling in his own sweet keeping for you. What I ask you to do is simply to trust God and not question. It only makes your head ache to try to understand these things. Do not try — trust instead.
Of one thing you may be perfectly sure — you are absolutely free from all blame.
Will you not lift your eyes to God in sweet, loving submission? Accept what has come as part of his grace, his will. Take your sorrow as a benediction. You are a young woman, with your life before you.
You have a husband whose happiness and whose life's success depend upon you far more than you think. God has given you another precious child to train. Then you have friends and work for Christ in their behalf. God does not want you to faint and lie in the dust of your sorrow — but to rise up and do the sweet work that is yours.
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