Don't Judge Parents Wishing for a Miracle

My son was born with a harelip, in 1979. Swedish doctors fixed it when he was about six months old. On his return from hospital he spent one whole night screaming in the bedroom with us because we had to tie his hands to the cot to protect the stitches in his lip. To be so close to such pain was a really dreadful experience, but it felt faint, even at the time, compared with some of the other suffering we had glimpsed on the paediatric ward.

Even at the time, I thought two things – that this was wholly incompatible with the character of a benevolent and omnipotent god, and that my little family had been fantastically lucky, and should never complain.

Many years later, a Christian friend who had raised a severely disabled child and kept her alive for more than 20 years, said quietly to me, in a completely matter of fact way, that it would have been better if she had died during her first operation, as a baby.