JF I am very glad to hear your children have done so well - it does lead me to another question about prayers being answered, or answered as you had hoped and prayed -

Why do you think God saved your children but not others? I am sure other devout individuals have prayed to God in a similar situation, but their children did not do so well.

Much better, thank you.

Now that's a religious experience.

If I had gone through that, that might have been the jolt I needed.

That's a tough question, one I didn't want to ask.

From a believer perspective I would say that it's not my place to question God's will. I'm grateful that he spared my children, and perhaps my children are destined for a purpose beyond my knowledge.

I'm always saddened when young people die. Everyone says, "They died before their time." and I always say that "that's all the time they had."

But how can we not ask that question? Isn't it fundamental to the issue of Is there a God?

If 100 babies were JF's children's situation, and all of the babies died except for JF's, that would mean that 98 out of 100 babies died ... or 98%
To me, that means that the doctors were amazingly good in predicting the odds.

All I can say is that there was a reason. I don't know what it is yet, but I believe there is a reason. Perhaps it was to help one of my family members to believe in God's miracles more fully. Perhaps He has something great planned for their lives. If I knew the answer, I'd be God. BUt I'm not. I also wondered that myself. I also asked God to save my father who had a heart attack at 49 years old. God didn't do it. He took my father's life. Why? I think this goes back to the thread about suffering, but I thought perhaps my father had fulfilled his purpose here on earth. All my father ever wanted was to raise his children & work. He did both those things. Us girls had had some rough times & each of us had at one time lived in their house as adults w/families of our own. Financial times were terrible for us two older girls for a long time so we needed to live w/our parents.

When he died though, my younger sister had entered the Air Force, my older sister had moved out & gotten back on her feet & was doing well & my family had moved out & was doing well after a year of living with them.

I know that my father at least had the chance to live whereas the babies that died didn't. Why, I don't know. Believe me, that's one of the questions I want to ask Him when I face Him someday. Perhaps it's to teach the parents something? I'm not sure what, but it does make you wonder.

Exactly when my grandmother died!

My youngest sister was nearly 30 before she married, and she was always under the watchful eye of my grandmother, my mother (her daughter) having died when I was 10 and my sister 6.

As soon as youngest sister was married and on her feet, poof, grandma dies.

I like to think that people die when their purpose is fulfilled also. Makes it easier.

Jesusfollower, I can see how that experience would have affected your faith. It might well have done the same for me.

When my middle child was 9, he was hit by a car.

He was hit on the legs, bounced up in the air, his head hit the bonnet and bounced off again. He was catapulted several yards up in the air and down the street. His head almost hit the kerb as he landed. I didn't see it happen but I heard it - a huge bang. I knew it was one of my children. As I looked, I could see my elder son hysterically screaming, because he thought his brother was dead. I couldn't my the younger boy. I thought he was dead. (My other son said that he had flown through the air like a rag doll). I walked over to my lad and he was actually sitting up looking a bit dazed. He got up and walked to the driver who had hit him, saying he didn't want an ambulance. The woman was hysterical because she was so sure that she had just killed my child.

My father - who had seemed to be the most healthy person I knew - had died two weeks earlier.

My sister-in-law said to my son - 'your grandad just saved your life.' I am inclined to think that he did.

This is where i get frustrated again (but have put the pencil safely away)

What about all the children who get killed in car accidents. Were their grand parents just not that interested in saving those lives?

I once had a professor make a point by saying, "Sure, we all hear stories about the dolphins who push the drowning sailors to land. That's because we never hear about the dolphins who push the sailors further out to sea."

(I love that story) Point being, we can come up with explanations and scenarios, but it seems we do so selectively. What about all the times these dead souls have not intervened to save a life or two?

I don't know, Victor, but you are agnostic, aren't you? So you don't know, either.

I've said before that things have happened to me that I don't understand. I don't know what the explanations are. There are 'things' that I feel more comfortable accepting than others. I don't know what the explanation is - and if I did come up with an explanation, I wouldn't know if I was right.

Maybe the spirit of my Dad just happened to be out there watching my kids, just as he had done a few weeks before when he was alive.

One thing I have always tended to believe in, from when I was young, was an essence - perhaps a soul. I don't know if I'm right of course. I don't know if souls live in heaven or in our imaginations. That's the thing about being agnostic, You are not closed to possibilities, but you cannot be sure that you actually 'know'.

There I must agree with you. I am the first to admit that I don't know - and in fact I hope you are right - I love the thought of having a soul or an afterlife, and I too get chills when I hear about supernatural experiences. I just have my doubts too ..seems like wishful thinking to me.