Answered Prayer or God's Design?

I know I've never ask so many questions, searched for so much understanding, or sought how not to feel so pained by words of good people that make me want to drown in tears as I have since my husband's only child and namesake, Sgt Patrick Tainsh was KIA 2/11/04 in Iraq.

No parent of a child killed in any manner would ever wish the grief and void of heart upon another.  Those of us who stand by the wayside after receiving the news of the death of our children at war, remain supporters of those families still struggling with the stress and strain of their loved ones' deployments to war zones.  We would even stand next to them, if asked, as their hero returns and walks toward them after their arrival back on U.S. soil.  Even with our broken hearts, we are happy they are spared the dark pain of grief and can touch and speak with their child again.

My pain comes f rom wondering why as much care isn't given to us.  Why do we have to receive the messages and hear the shouts, "Thank you Lord for answering my prayers!" after their loved ones have arrived safely home.  Doesn't anyone realize how painful this is to us who can never touch or hear our child again?

Do they not know that is like as slap in the face, a punch in the gut, a boulder on our head because we scream inside and out, Why God?  Why wasn't my prayer answered!   Then someone says, "Well God answers some prayers and others, not."  And I ask, what sense does this make?  You mean God is somewhere switching his chin  from one fist to the other thinking about whether or not He's going to answer our prayer to bring our kids or husbands home safe!

You mean the omnipotent God, all omniscent didn't know before our children were born how and when they would be taken from us, and hence, it was all those prayers and prayer warriors that did the trick instead of the fact that, "..you saw my body as it was formed. All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old." Psalm 139:15-16

If this is true, then God did know us and our children and all loved ones before we were born and knows what will happen in our lives and the day that will be our last.

No, family members of fallen warriors would never want anyone else to feel the grief and pain that follows the death of a child at war or any other cause.  It's an abyss that debilitates until we get through to the light again, but then we're never the same people we were before.

All we ask is that our grief not be enhanced and our faces not be pressed into words that make us feel that others received "special favor" from God, our same Father, and we didn't.

Envision this scene:  "Whoopee, Dad gave me my prayer!!  Whoopee, Dad is so good!  Thanks every body for helping me talk Dad into answering my prayer!  Oh what relief!  Praise be to Dad!"  While watching and listening is the sister or brother whose grief and pain rekindles to a rage because Dad didn't provide the same good favor for them.

All we ask is for consideration.  And although our hearts are broken, because we owe it to our fallen children, their brothers and sisters in arms, and their families, we are more than willing and wanting to share in the joy of the return of others' warriors.  We want to show the strength and courage our children showed the world.

We want those who received their children back to be thankful. We want them to shed tears of joy, to release the breath they've held while their loved one has been in a war zone.  Just please remember, others of us prayed and believed as much and as hard as anyone else did whose loved one returned.  

I'm not convinced it's prayer, no matter the number of words, or how many people pray, that keeps one person alive over another in a war zone, with disease, or other manners of death.  I'm more able to believe all is due to that which God has already designed?  For after all, He is the Alpha & Omega, the all knowing. 

May our prayers be that our faith be sustained even in God's will to take as he also gives. May we pray as Jesus taught, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done...and add the words we all need: provide us the peace, strength, courage, and faith in the darkest moments of our life, and joy in the soul when we learn that only because it was meant to be that darkness passed us by.