[Wolfstar]

All of you who are waxing poetic about this tragic baby's next life, can you tell me one thing? What about the here and now? Most religions teach that we are not predestined and we have free will. Seems to me this poor little one is predestined all right. As for free will, where is the option for this baby to exercise any at all, even if she survives beyond infancy?

Look at her lying there on a flat table. She appears to be out in a hall somewhere, and the photo appears to have been taken surrepticiously, so you know that's routine care for the baby. She has no protection from falling off the table. No kindly nurse is watching over her. No mom. No dad. No love. I look at this and all I see is monstrous cruelty, not just by human beings who probably recoil from the baby, but by a God I all-too-often just do not understand.

I want to have faith in God. I want God to love me. But there are times I simply cannot look past the horrors of this world.

[paulat]

We were thinking the same things.

[CindyDawg]

Looking at the pictures that seems to be the "hospital". As sad as it is, this baby has a purpose. Why not join us in prayer, that someone provides the nuturing care that we all agree that she needs?

[caseinpoint]

None of us can claim to understand God. He is incomprehensible. Yet He is also perfect love and perfect justice. The mortal condition of this child is not her destiny. Perfect justice is not something that can or will occur in this life. It simply isn't possible without overriding free will and that defeats the purpose of our mortality, which is to prove that we can be obedient and faithful to God.

It so happens that my faith believes we didn't just poof into existence at birth. I believe we existed in heaven before birth, as children of our Father in Heaven, and that in many cases we had a large part in determining the circumstances of our mortal lives--not in the sense of Karma or reincarnation or anything, but in the sense of volunteering to fulfill a mission along with gaining our mortal bodies. Thus, some of us live a long time, some only a moment, some in luxury, some in destitution. Each of us is only expected to "fulfill the measure of our creation" (which is different for each person) and return to our Father. Some, I believe, were so faithful and valiant in Heaven that they need only come to earth to gain a body and then they can depart back home to Heaven. And even some of those choose to stay here longer to help the rest of us learn compassion and empathy. In other words, the valiant souls are serving us and helping us to be more Christ-like. On the other hand, if we neglect these souls, we are accountable to God eventually unless we first repent.

Because I see this mortal life as a continuum or the second act in a three-act play, so to speak, I don't put that much stock in the second act alone. Just as a play doesn't stand by its second act alone either, neither does God's love and justice stand or fall by the second act alone.

Don't let the unfair things of this world keep you from feeling the Lord's love in your life. I get discouraged at the evil and unfairness in life also but I can also remember that as Isaiah says, our ways are not the Lord's ways, and our thoughts are not the Lord's thoughts. We can't hope to understand the Lord's ways because our understanding is so childlike compared to his. When I took my children to the doctor for their immunizations, it was difficult for me to let the doctor hurt them without being able to communicate adequately why they were being hurt. I could only hope my babies still believed I loved them more than anything and there must be some reason why Mommy let the doctor stick needles in them. I think the same thing applies to some extent to us and the Lord's ways. We are not capable of seeing the long-term visions of the Lord and knowing His purposes. That understanding brings me peace. I hope it can help you in your journey.

[Waryone]

That little girl all alone is exactly what struck me as being frightening. I also know that God loves this little one. He loved Her so much that He gave His life and now lives for us. Hopefully one of His people will come to her and show her Christ's love.

It is painful to see a family desert someone who needs even more love than usual. When God created the world, He did not intend things to work this way, but situations like this happen everyday in a fallen world. Human beings will never be able to correct this character defect on their own. It is the way of fallen people to fail one another.

But God never fails. He provides for even the weakest and most helpless. Sometimes the greatest thing He provides is the opportunity for those of us who are called by His name to step up and live up to our name. I hope Christians there will see this and do what they can for this little one.

[dandelion]

Perhaps you need to be the one of us whom would have deemed "tragic" to understand where faith truly comes from...

from the mountaintop, everthing seems so far down, so far away. You are afraid of the valley, and you are afraid that someday you may have to walk in it. Even though you may have entered the shadow, the world of the valley is too far below you to comprehend it. You fear it, and it makes you wonder how a God of the mountaintops could have ever made something as fearful and dark as the valley.

But from the valley, everything looks up. So too it is with us; we look up, and we are not afraid of the mountaintop. For God is with us in the valley, in the shadow, even when we cannot see a way out. And we know that if God is with us in the valley, then God is everywhere. In the dark, God's presence shines all the brighter...

I have been through the valley of the shadow of death. God was with me. Believe me, for I was afraid - and yet, God was there. I had moments of doubt - and yet, God was real. I was rejected - and yet, I never was unloved.

I have never plumbed the depths of the valley, nor have I walked to the highest reaches of the mountaintops. But I will fear no evil, for God is with me.

When you go to the valley, you will see Him there, with you, too... then you will understand. Life is not the mountaintop, or the valley; it is the journey, and God goes with us through it all. God is there in the hospital, holding the hand of the baby on the table. You do not see Him -

but the baby does.

[beyond the sea]

I love your post.

I have to say ......... I feel for you too. It's people like you, with so much sensitivity for all of life, including the unhappiness and cruelty of life, who hurt. You are so good.

Trust me ....... I know.

****

Starry starry night

paint your palette blue and grey

look out on a summer's day

with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.

Shadows on the hills

sketch the trees and the daffodils

catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colors on the snowy linen land.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity

how you tried to set them free.

They would not listen

they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry starry night

flaming flowers that brightly blaze

swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in

Vincent's eyes of China blue.

Colors changing hue

morning fields of amber grain

weathered faces lined in pain

are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity

how you tried to set them free.

perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you

but still your love was true

And when no hope was left in sight on that starry starry night.

You took your life as lovers often do;

But I could have told you Vincent

this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

****

Vincent ........... Don McLean

[reagan_fanatic]

That photo is so deeply disturbing on so many levels. I just wish I could be there to hold her and let her know she's not alone. As the Father of a soon-to-be one year-old girl, it breaks my heart to see this.

May God be with her in spirit and comfort her tiny soul.

[beyond the sea]

Is there a God who may intend that we see a picture like that, to have a child in such a condition? I doubt it.

I'm sorry................. I die seeing the sad and horrible loneliness of that little girl.

And this silliness by some posters about God's intent is presumptuous and fool hearty.

(jmo)

[Hydroshock]

Prayers sent.

[cyborg]

All by herself :(