God & Birth Defects

[PMG]

Hello All. I hope that someone will respond to my post.

I understand that much human suffering is self-induced. Human folly, error & sin bring on their on suffering. Why, however, does God allow children to be born with birth defects which will result in a lifetime of physical and or emotional pain? Once permitted, why won’t he heal them?

My son has multiple disabilities which are very painful to him especially, but also to all of us. Much better Christians than I am have added their prayers for his healing to mine, all to no avail. My son asks me why he was born this way and I have to be careful how I answer. But the truth is, I wonder if God isn’t HAPPY with my son’s predicament, otherwise he would correct it.

This is not only a health issue. It embitters me every Sunday at mass when we sing and pray about a loving God and read Bible stories about Jesus healing people, while my boy sits painfully in his wheelchair, seemingly neglected by God.

Thank you.

 

[pete_29]

Hello All. I hope that someone will respond to my post.

I understand that much human suffering is self-induced. Human folly, error & sin bring on their on suffering. Why, however, does God allow children to be born with birth defects which will result in a lifetime of physical and or emotional pain? Once permitted, why won’t he heal them?

My son has multiple disabilities which are very painful to him especially, but also to all of us. Much better Christians than I am have added their prayers for his healing to mine, all to no avail. My son asks me why he was born this way and I have to be careful how I answer. But the truth is, I wonder if God isn’t HAPPY with my son’s predicament, otherwise he would correct it.

This is not only a health issue. It embitters me every Sunday at mass when we sing and pray about a loving God and read Bible stories about Jesus healing people, while my boy sits painfully in his wheelchair, seemingly neglected by God.

Thank you.

I hope that what they lose in this life, they gain in the next. I hope that their road to heaven is easy because of their pain here.

 

[buffalo]

Life here on earth is a blink of the eye compared to eternity. Help him focus on his immortal soul and his glorified body at the last judgement.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Hello All. I hope that someone will respond to my post.

I understand that much human suffering is self-induced. Human folly, error & sin bring on their on suffering. Why, however, does God allow children to be born with birth defects which will result in a lifetime of physical and or emotional pain? Once permitted, why won’t he heal them?

We are created not for ourselves, but as parts of humanity.

The reason for all human suffering (allowed but not created by God) is to illustrate the consequences of sin. The suffering of the innocents originates not from their (nonexistent personal) sins, or the “sins of their post-Adam&Eve fathers”, but from the cascade of sins set off by (the) original sin.

Suffering (of the human variety) is to be offered up by the sufferer, as best instructed to do so by his/her “fathers”, as well as best intuitively felt to do so by his/her “spiritual sense of natural law”, and suffering is to be alleviated by all men as best they can.

People suffer so that they and others may be “converted” to being more and more Christlike.

God’s justice tells us that no suffering goes un-recompensed in heaven, and God’s mercy gives us hope that the suffering have at least as good a chance FOR heaven as the rest of us “less suffering”.

My son has multiple disabilities which are very painful to him especially, but also to all of us. Much better Christians than I am have added their prayers for his healing to mine, all to no avail. My son asks me why he was born this way and I have to be careful how I answer. But the truth is, I wonder if God isn’t HAPPY with my son’s predicament, otherwise he would correct it.

God is not happy about any suffering. We know that God has a purpose to all suffering, and that He allows a particular instance of suffering to continue to exist simply means that it’s wiser and better for us (humanity) that that suffering continue than that it not continue.

This is not only a health issue. It embitters me every Sunday at mass when we sing and pray about a loving God and read Bible stories about Jesus healing people, while my boy sits painfully in his wheelchair, seemingly neglected by God.

The gift of the cross is the most important gift that God gives us.

The devil wants you to be embittered. Would you rather want to satisfy God, whose reasons for doing things are not for us to know but which ARE always for good, or satan, whose reasons for doing things are completely known by us and which are always to make us embittered and rejecting of God?

There is no need to be “happy” that a loved one is suffering, or that you yourself are suffering, but the correct thing to DO WITH suffering is to offer it up to God, and know that whatever happens is for the best.

Alleviate suffering where you can. Help others see suffering and help THEM do their God-required job of alleviating suffering.

…and be assured that by “using” suffering in this way that more GOOD comes to the world than by using suffering to simply be “embittered”.

:shamrock2:

 

[ckempston]

Hello All. I hope that someone will respond to my post.

I understand that much human suffering is self-induced. Human folly, error & sin bring on their on suffering. Why, however, does God allow children to be born with birth defects which will result in a lifetime of physical and or emotional pain? Once permitted, why won’t he heal them?

My son has multiple disabilities which are very painful to him especially, but also to all of us. Much better Christians than I am have added their prayers for his healing to mine, all to no avail. My son asks me why he was born this way and I have to be careful how I answer. But the truth is, I wonder if God isn’t HAPPY with my son’s predicament, otherwise he would correct it.

This is not only a health issue. It embitters me every Sunday at mass when we sing and pray about a loving God and read Bible stories about Jesus healing people, while my boy sits painfully in his wheelchair, seemingly neglected by God.

Thank you.

I’m sorry for your family’s and son’s suffering. Not sure if this will help, but personally, I think of the Pharisees when they asked Jesus, “Who sinned?” when they brought a blind man before him. Jesus’ answer was that nobody sinned, but the man was born this way to show God’s glory. Now, most of us don’t have the benefit of being healed by Jesus physically, but that being said, I think that when suffering occurs, and everyone involved makes the best of it in spite of the pain and suffering, God is glorified all the more.

 

[MarieVeronica]

Dear “PMG”. I’m so sorry for your pain and suffering, and for that of your son. :console:

I am not a parent, myself. So, I can’t possibly claim to understand what you are going through, in witnessing daily… your sons struggles. It must be the most difficult of ALL “Crosses”… when a parent must watch their precious child, suffer. You are all in my prayers.

But I could relate to your thread in one way. I am sole caregiver to my dear mother. She suffers from crippling arthritis and advancing Alzheimer’s Disease. She also has a myriad of “lesser” health issues… which are a constant concern for me. I lose a little more of her, each day. So, I understand what it’s like to watch someone you love, suffer.

I have often found comfort in the wisdom of our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II… on the topic of suffering. He wrote extensively on the subject. Perhaps the link below will be of some help to you. May God bless you and give you courage and strength. In caring for you son… you are most definitely… caring for Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

MV

catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0701fea1.asp