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Sometimes, children like this are brought into the world to change the hearts of the people around them. That is their mission; that is their purpose. And they can do it in a way that is 1000 times more effective than any adult could.

Aside from the fact that there is one glaring inconsistency in the story you posted to me, I'm always struck by the sentiments in your paragraph above, tacked on at the end of the story. It requires belief that:

1. God deliberately lets children be born to experience great suffering immediately at birth and for sometime thereafter just to teach adults a lesson.
2. God values the adults involved more than the child, who gets to live a short, tragic life.

Such a point of view has always struck me as breathtaking in is self-centeredness. "It's all about me. God is trying to teach me a lesson." Magically, the lesson always is one that is supported by the society and culture in which the parents live.

The child is a separate human being. Any God who would use a child in the way you suggest is not a loving God. At least not as I understand what love means.

Considering the fact that my brother and sister-in-law, who lived through every moment of Eric's life, have read this article many times and never pointed out any "inconsistencies," I would be interested to know just where you thought a true account of my nephew's life was misrepresented?

You honestly don't think that God uses tests and suffering as a means of creating a greater good? Look to Jesus' suffering, look to Moses' suffering, look to countless stories in the old and new Testament. God loved them all, but they all suffered - some of them suffered greatly. God understood completely what we were all going through; He went through it Himself.

Self-centered? Hardly. Self-centered would have prompted me to not care a whit about him; he was going to die soon anyway, so why bother loving him?

I guess it's one of those things a person has to live through to understand.