Today we were asked if our beliefs have been changed or strengthened after the loss of our child.  I kind of touched on this the other day.  My beliefs weren't really changed.  I was brought up in the Church and well grounded by my parents.  I have found nothing in my experience that does anything but validate those teachings.  At the same time I'm not sure that it strengthened them either.  My faith is the most defining part of who I am.  It's why I dated a man over the internet and agreed to marry him the third time I was with him in person, and then traveled more than 700 miles from home to begin our life together.  It's why we raise our living children the way that we do.  It's why we drive more than 2 hours to Church each Sunday.

Now I have asked why alot.  Why He didn't intervene?  Why she wasn't given a full life like others?  He has never given me any more direct answers than what I've already read and known to be true for many years.  As long as sin is in this world, death indiscriminately comes to all.  It's not a punishment, it's simply a by product of a world with sin - disease, death, hardship.  These things affect everyone, the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  We all experience good things, and hardship.  It has been more than a year, and while I still wish He had intervened and prevented it from happening, I have not been angry with Him at any time for not intervening.