{"id":864,"date":"2011-06-15T09:08:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=864"},"modified":"2019-08-27T12:41:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T16:41:28","slug":"a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who can explain a child\u2019s suffering?<\/p>\n<p>This week an 18-month old child died in St. Paul, Minnesota when equipment malfunctioned at a chiropractor\u2019s office. The small boy crawled under the spine therapy table to which his mother was strapped and pushed an electronic button that brought the table down on him.<\/p>\n<p>Tragic. Senseless. Heart breaking. \u201cWhy?\u201d No one can answer\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0In times like this we must choose \u2013 move away from God, or move\u00a0toward God.<\/p>\n<p>Today, we pray for families grieving the loss of a child.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cGod, bring comfort and peace. Peace is your essence. Peace is your name. Bring peace to this family who has lost their precious child in death.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We come to you, God because we know that you sorrow, and are acquainted with grief. You too have endured the loss of a child. You empathize.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We can\u2019t help but ask, \u201cWhy?\u201d Forgive our insistence, our confusion, even our anger. We believe that you are just, and we ache to understand how this tragic death is an expression of that justice, how it expresses your love. We also know \u2013 in our minds at least \u2013 that you seldom answer the \u201cwhy?\u201d question. We press you, but on these matters you are mostly silent.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What we ask instead is \u201chow?\u201d How can we move forward? How can this bring us together and not tear us apart? How can we now live under the shadow of this untimely death? Answer this prayer with your comfort and guidance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>There is no way to remove the pain. The grief is real. The only sanity is to know, to believe, in a life beyond with you, when all the scales are righted and the sufferings are made good. We trust you and your promise that while this child\u2019s life on earth is done, his life beyond has just begun. With that release we lose him and let him go into your arms, then by faith receive in return the boundless comfort of your presence. That is all, that is enough. In Jesus.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who can explain a child\u2019s suffering? This week an 18-month old child died in St. Paul, Minnesota when equipment malfunctioned at a chiropractor\u2019s office. The small boy crawled under the spine therapy table to which his mother was strapped and pushed an electronic button that brought the table down on him. Tragic. Senseless. Heart breaking.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[71,70,72],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","tag-death-of-a-child","tag-grief","tag-prayer-for-grieving-family"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God, bring comfort and peace. Peace is your essence. Peace is your name. Bring peace to this family who has lost their precious child in death.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-15T13:08:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-08-27T16:41:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child","og_description":"God, bring comfort and peace. Peace is your essence. Peace is your name. Bring peace to this family who has lost their precious child in death.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2011-06-15T13:08:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-08-27T16:41:28+00:00","author":"Mark Herringshaw","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html","name":"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-15T13:08:44+00:00","dateModified":"2019-08-27T16:41:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/e51fa8f80737818cd4c3350772b30948"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2011\/06\/a-prayer-for-a-family-grieving-the-death-of-a-child.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Prayer for a Family Grieving the Death of a Child"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/e51fa8f80737818cd4c3350772b30948","name":"Mark Herringshaw","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b8e\/b8e027f03bf8fd532b692d0c68d2744ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b8e\/b8e027f03bf8fd532b692d0c68d2744ex96.jpg","caption":"Mark Herringshaw"},"description":"Mark Herringshaw is writer, speaker, spiritual life coach and pastor at North Heights Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the author of \"Six Prayers God Always Answers: Results May Vary,\" and \"Nine Ways God Always Speaks: Only Available in Certain States,\" both co-written with Jennifer Schuchmann. His third book is \"The Karma of Jesus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mark is a native of Santa Cruz, California. He has studied at Azusa Pacific University, The Academy of Performing Arts, Cambridge, Ontario, and Luther Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. from Regent University. Mark and his wife Jill have four children. His true passion is walking with people in the exciting adventure of communicating with God.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/mherringshaw"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4501,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}