death and life

[dustthouart]

Two good friends of mine had miscarriages in the past few months. The first I only learned about after the fact, the latter I heard about the pregnancy, then that there was a possible miscarriage, then that there was a definite miscarriage

Comments

[salanth]

What is praying for a serial killer of children going to do for you? Is it to teach you grace and forgiveness, in praying for this soul? It seems like he got off on any attention whatsoever, so praying for him (in torment or what have you) is getting him off even more. I'm curious as to how you feel about it, because I wonder how you would feel if Pippa had been one of his victims, especially at an older age. An older child, raped and tortured to death, while he then profited off knowing where her remains were.

As well, what about those miscarriages where no one had even realized there was a pregnancy in the first place? What about the unknown miscarriages, without knowledge that anything had happened? What are the purposes of those?

[dustthouart]

There's a ton to unpack in your comment, and actually several different things that are hard to tease apart.

The three key things I see in your comment are questions of theodicy (why does a good God allow evil?), purpose of prayer (which includes several subheads, such as is prayer effective, who does prayer benefit, etc) and is anyone beyond forgiveness (the classic Hitler question). But there's more than just that.

Answering all of them would go beyond my personal time allowances right now (I'm currently trying to chow down on my breakfast while Gordon takes care of Pip, and after I finish I need to take her back so he can shower). But there are answers to all of them.

I do have a friendslocked post I did a while ago that muses on what to means to forgive child abusers, so you might read that, for part of my answer.

Sorry that this is a classic "I'm too busy to answer your question" non-answer.