There is something greater than raising the dead and feeding the multitudes: Blessed are they who have believed with their whole heart (Fragment, “The Coptic Acts of Paul”).

Anyone who has been at the bedside of a mortally sick child will know what I mean when I write about the fight for life that goes on in each soul and body. This fight is independent of the parents’ longing that the child live; it is independent even of the child’s own waiting and longing to be released from pain.

The tenacious will to live is in every person, not only in children. It is even there in the elderly. They may be on the threshold of eternity. They may be completely ready to go, even longing for God to free them from their suffering. Yet when their time comes, when their body has given up and begun to disintegrate, they still go on fighting for life and cannot let go of the earth.

A few months ago a baby girl with serious congenital problems was born to a young couple in our church. Carmen has undergone numerous large and small operations since her birth, but to hold her when she is free from pain, to experience her radiant smiles, her cooing, and her joyful little soul stretching out to yours, is to feel the presence of a deep mystery that dwells in every one of us. This mystery is the primeval life-force of the soul which is there in even the frailest, most vulnerable body. It was not put there by the child’s parents, nor by some coincidence, but by God, the creator and source of all life.

What a comfort this is to the believing mother, burdened by thoughts of an uncertain future or of the hardships that might one day face her child! God is with every child who suffers. Often this may seem too difficult to believe — even impossible. Why should our child, why should we, have to bear the burden of pain? Why does God give us a child to love and then take him or her away from us again? How can our grief possibly serve any purpose?

Even though no one can answer such deep questions satisfactorily, we know that none of us is exempt from suffering. If we can accept suffering — if we can open ourselves to it, even without understanding it--we can allow it to change us and, in doing so, give it meaning. We must believe that suffering can lead to faith, and to compassion for others who suffer.

Children, more than adults, often have a natural inclination to faith because they are so close to God. When we experience the faith of a child — indeed, whenever we sense faith in anyone at any time — we should be careful not to hinder it, but nurture it so that it may become a foundation on which to face future storms. My father writes:

Children are closer than anyone else to the heart of Jesus, and he points to them as an example for us…The fact that children have to suffer is very strange. It is as if they are bearing someone else’s guilt, as if they are suffering because of the fall of creation. In a way they seem to be paying the wages of sin — even though it is sin in which they have taken no active part as yet… Perhaps the suffering of children has a close connection with the greatest suffering ever endured: God’s suffering, Christ’s suffering for lost creation…The suffering of a child always has great significance.

Emmy Maria

My parents lost their first child, Emmy Maria, in 1938, due to a severe kidney problem. She was three months old. Obviously, the rest of us children never knew her, yet her short life had a deep significance for all of us. Both my father and my mother grew up with a view of life prevalent among the German youth of their day: the belief that everything that happens in creation has a deeper meaning, and even if we cannot discern that meaning, we should have reverence for creation and for the creator of all life.

Emmy Maria’s short life deepened this outlook and had a profound effect not only on them but on our whole family and on the people around us. It was as if she fulfilled a divine task for us all. The following passages, quoted from a diary my parents kept during her sickness and the days before and after her death, may help other parents who face a similar situation.

It was quite extraordinary what such a small child could feel and notice, and how we could tell what she felt. It became clearer and clearer what her little soul was going through, and what she had to communicate to us. As her body grew weaker, it became more and more strongly an expression of her soul. That became powerfully clear to us in the hour of her death.

The last few days our child was given to live among us were hard for the human heart to bear, yet extremely great and powerful, filled with promise because of the nearness of Christ.

It was remarkable that each time we interceded for Emmy Maria and gathered ourselves inwardly, the powers of death withdrew, and she revived. Whereas before she lay there apathetic, unresponsive, and weak, with half-open eyes, shallow breath, and a very weak pulse, she would suddenly open her eyes, look at us, cry, and drink, moving her hands and turning her head when she was gently touched: she would come back to consciousness. Sometimes such a transformation came within seconds.

There was a special atmosphere of love in her room. It went out from her and filled the whole house, and united us in special love to each other…

We took turns watching by her. It was a hard fight, and she had to suffer a great deal. It was a struggle with death, so real that it seemed incredible that such a tiny baby could take it up…

Emmy Maria gave us so much joy. Sometimes she would cry for hunger; then, when we fed her, she would smack her lips and suck for pleasure until she had swallowed her 20 grams from a dropper. We could tell that she felt happy to be with us at home. Sometimes she would smile in her sleep, and then her little mouth would widen…On awakening she would stretch and straighten herself and reach her hands up out of the covers.

In the last days there were some very critical moments. Her little face grew thinner and thinner, her eyes got bigger and bigger, and more and more expressive. Her little neck was so very thin…Again and again we held on to faith and trusted that a miracle could still be given; that she might be healed. Then at other times we wished that if it was not God’s will for her to live, he might take her to himself soon and relieve her frail little body of its terrible torment and suffering.

Just before the end our little one opened her eyes wide, wider than they had ever been in her life. Then, with a clear, shining, otherworldly gaze, she looked at both of us for a long time. There was no sorrow and no suffering left in those eyes, but a message from the other world, a message of joy. Her eyes were not dull and clouded but bright and shining. She could not tell us anything in words, of course, but her eyes bore witness to the heavenly splendor and unspeakable joy there is with Christ. With this gaze, our dearly beloved child took leave of us. We shall never forget those radiant eyes.

Mark John

Several years ago another couple at one of our communities lost a son to cancer. The youngest child in the family, Mark John was a sunny, lovable three-year-old. His story, as recorded by his parents in their diary, illustrates in wonderful way how the trusting faith of a suffering child can work redemptively in those around him:

The doctors at Yale-New Haven proposed that Mark John be transferred to a hospital in New York City for rigorous chemotherapy along with some other new treatment still at the experimental stage. When we asked them how much it would help Mark John, they could only say that at best it might prolong his life two to eight months, and at the price of his becoming deathly sick. When pressed, they reluctantly admitted that he would suffer terribly; in fact, he could die from the treatment itself… We decided that we would rather have our child at home, close to us, than in a hospital, even if he would live a little longer. It was an agonizing decision, but we know that God alone has all our lives in his hand, and especially the life of our little boy.

Daily Mark John became weaker and weaker. After a few weeks, Heinrich, the elder of our church, suggested that we bring him to a service where we could lay him into the arms of the church and intercede for him. We knew Jesus could heal him, but we also knew that he might want to have him back…

The service was very simple. Heinrich spoke about how Jesus loves all the children of the world, and then we prayed that God’s will would be done, and that we would be ready to accept it. Easter had special meaning for us, thinking of Jesus’ suffering and deepest pain, his godforsakenness and need for help, and then the resurrection and its unbelievable promise to every believer. Mark John was surely a believer. He believed like Jesus told us to — like a child.

On Easter morning his mother took him on a long walk in his wagon and talked to him about heaven and the angels and Jesus. She told him he would soon go to heaven, and that he should wait for us, and someday we would all be together again. He listened and nodded and sometimes said, “Yes.” Later, when the rest of the family joined them, he pulled his big sister down to him and whispered joyfully, “Natalie, soon I’ll get wings!”

Then Mark John lost his sight in one eye. He cried when he realized it. We were in such a tension: Would he be blind before Jesus came to take him? We longed so much that he might be spared that ordeal.

Once when he was lying on our bed between us, he asked us about the picture hanging on the wall opposite our bed — a painting of the Good Shepherd leaning over a cliff to rescue a lamb, with a bird of prey hovering over it. We knew a bird of prey was hovering over our little child too, but he was so unaware, so trusting. He grew thoughtful as he looked at the picture and asked us to tell him about it. We told him that Jesus was the Good Shepherd, and that we all are his lambs — also he. It was remarkable how he listened intently and seemed to understand…

By now he was eating hardly anything at all. He got thinner and thinner, and we feared he would starve. We wondered how long our other children could endure to see him suffer so much, as this illness slowly but terribly distorted and changed his dear face and body. Yet somehow, love showed us the way. All the children wanted to be with him. They accepted his suffering completely…

One day when we bent over him as he lay in his little wagon, he reached out his thin arms and cried pitifully, “I can’t see, I can’t see!” We said, “When you are in heaven — when your guardian angel comes and carries you to the arms of Jesus — you will be able to see again.” But he could not be comforted.

He asked, “When? When?” and we said, “Soon.” He argued and said “No,” so I had to insist, “I promise.” Then he grew calm.

A day or two later, when we said goodnight to Mark John, he reached up and said, “I want to kiss you, Mommy,” and gave her a healthy kiss. He kissed his mother first and then me. We were both so moved and happy because he hadn’t asked for a kiss like that for several days: his little head turned towards his Mommy with his precious eyes that couldn’t see any longer…

Often during the last days we talked with Mark John and told him that he was a brave boy, that we were very, very happy that he had come to us, and that he always was a good boy. On two occasions he answered us very emphatically, shaking his little head and saying, “No, no.” It distressed us. We didn’t know what he meant, but in retrospect we feel that maybe he just wanted to remind us that he was also sometimes naughty, and that he was sorry for it.

On the last day he vomited blood; Milton, our doctor, turned to us and said, “Soon.” Then we sang a song that we had sung many times during the last days: “We shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” When we came to the refrain, “Jesus himself shall be our leader,” Mark John said distinctly, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Mark John was given incredible strength in his last hours. Several times he said, “Up, up!” We asked him if he wanted to go up to heaven, and he said, “Yes.” At one point we said, “Good-bye, Mark John,” and he said, “Not yet.” That was about an hour before he was taken.

A little later, as we were bending over him, he suddenly said, “Laugh!”
“What, Mark John?”
“Laugh!”
“But why should we laugh, darling?”
“Because,” was the short but emphatic answer. And then, while we were still trying to grasp it, he repeated, “Please, laugh!”

Then we said, “Good-bye, Mark John,” and he said, “Bye-bye.” We told him we would see him again soon, because for him in eternity it will be very soon. Then he lifted both his arms and stretched them up and pointed with both fingers toward heaven, and his eyes looked and saw — his blind eyes that couldn’t see any longer on this earth, but already saw beyond our world — and called out, “Not two! One!” He repeated this two or three times. “Not two! One!” He saw two angels coming to fetch him, and we had always told him only about one.

Then he turned toward his mother and said distinctly and tenderly, “Mommy, Mommy.” Then he said “Papa, Papa.” It was as if he wanted to unite us very closely. And then, in that dear and characteristic way of his, nodding his head, he said, “Mark John, Mark John.” It was as if he had heard Jesus calling his name, and was repeating it. We had never heard him say his own name like that before. We bent over him, and then two more times he lifted up his arms and pointed to heaven with those thin arms that had been too weak even to lift a cup to his mouth for days.

Then, fighting for breath, he called out, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” Ellen talked to him softly and reassuringly…He was still breathing heavily but we could not feel his little heart any more. And then came the last precious breath and the agonizing sigh. Death had taken his body, but his soul was victorious and free. We called to our darling little boy, “Mark John, Mark John!” But he was gone. Milton said, “It is all over now. His soul is free and with God. He has no more pain.” We asked, “Are you really sure?” And Milton said, “I am sure beyond doubt.” It was between 3 and 4 a.m….

As we look back on that night, we can see now that Mark John was slowly moving into another world. He went trustingly, even happily. It was as if we were standing before the gates to eternity, and we could take him that far, but then we would have to leave him. He would go in, and we would have to wait.

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This article is taken from When Children Suffer, Chapter 15 of the book "A Little Child Shall Lead Them."
Available as an ebook from Plough.

 

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