 |
Dear
Gramps, In the news a while ago a little boy fed his little brother Windex
through a bottle. I know that free agency is there but why does the Lord allow
people to hurt his children. My Dad told me that the Lord takes them away
quick so that they don't feel anything, but what about the parents that have
to deal with the loss of one child to death and another to jail? Sarah, from
Utah |
Dear
Sarah,
You
just answered your own question. You can’t have it both ways. Since God has
granted us free agency—which, by the way, is the opposite of what Satan
desired for us to receive, things contrary to the will of God will occur.
But
the seeming inequities that we see all around us are generally perceived as such
because we don’t know the whole story. There is much more to life than this
rather instants “vale of tears” we call mortality. God is not only a just
God, but he is kind and merciful. We are all his children and he loves each of
us with a perfect love of which only our Father in Heaven is capable. Let us
never doubt that He is in control, and that little children who die not denied
of any blessing that they would have received had they been permitted to tarry,
but they are saved as heirs of the celestial kingdom, and live with all the
blessings of the gospel in the presence of their Father. President Joseph F.
Smith said the following:
“our
beloved friends who are now deprived of their little ones have great cause for
joy and rejoicing, even in the midst of the deep sorrow that they feel at the
loss of their little one for a time. They know he is all right; they have the
assurance that their little one has passed away without sin. Such children are
in the bosom of the Father. They will inherit their glory and their exaltation,
and they will not be deprived of the blessings that belong to them; for, in the
economy of heaven, and in the wisdom of the Father, who doeth all things well,
those who are cut down as little children are without any responsibility for
their taking off, they, themselves, not having the intelligence and wisdom to
take care of themselves and to understand the laws of life; and, in the wisdom
and mercy and economy of God our Heavenly Father, all that could have been
obtained and enjoyed by them if they had been permitted to live in the flesh
will be provided for them hereafter. They will lose nothing by being taken away
from us in this way ¼.
(Collected Discourses, Vol. 4, Funeral Services for Daniel Wells Grant, March
12, 1895).
Between
1869 and 1898 President Joseph F. Smith buried nine little children of his own.
Gramps