May, 2022
Jesus could have healed him.
The absolute knowledge of that hits hard and sends pain coursing through me. God is so powerful, all powerful. He knew the choices Dylan would make that day. He could’ve slowed the truck, prevented a malfunction, he could’ve protected his body from the impact. He did not.
At the beginning of my grief that made me so angry. Why wouldn’t it? The God I worship and have since I was so young failed me. He allowed one of the most precious of things to me – be taken away, in such a sudden and violent manner. With no warning. There was no gut feeling about that day making it different than any other. I had no concern watching him leave the driveway, no mom-senses warning of danger, no inkling of the trauma to come. My worst nightmare became real in an instant and it’s something I would have to, will have to live with the rest of my days. It felt like God prescribed me a lifetime of pain.
Oddly enough along with my anger was this little twinge of peace that kept me from completely going over the deep end, it kept me from cutting God off from my heart. My small mustard seed of faith held strong, it moved a mountain. Despite the incredible pain, fear and disappointment I felt…I also felt His peace. I’m not sure I could’ve named it at the time.
The gospel shows so many accounts of Jesus visiting the sick, healing them. Raising the dead. The woman who was bleeding only needed to touch the hem of his garment and was healed for goodness sake. Was my faith too small? Was my walk too scarred with sin for God to hear me crying out to him? Begging him for my son? My heart cried out in prayer as I hit my knees on a dirt road watching my son be extracted from his crushed truck he’d just driven for the very first, and only, time. Begging God to spare his life, to not take him from us. To protect him. The faces all around me should’ve made it clear what was about to happen. Still I hoped, I prayed.
Hearing the trauma team tell us that it was about the worst brain injury they’d seen and there was nothing to be done made me actually laugh out loud. That was impossible. Miracles happen. They didn’t know my God. The pastor stopping to pray with us who happened to be visiting a friend should’ve been a sign of what was to come. He sat and prayed with us over Dylan. Still, I hoped.
Our families and friends rallied, the word went out. Countless people behind the scenes dropped to their knees the moment they heard calling out to my God for a miracle. People came, my dad sat reading his bible, he prayed over Dylan. We prayed by his side. People who don’t even have relationships with Jesus cried out for us in his name. We had the numbers, we had the love, we had the hope, we had the faith.
In the end it was not enough. I say that not to minimize God’s ability to have changed the situation at any given time. Jesus raised people from death. I fully believe if it had been within God’s plan for Dylan that he would have healed him. Small faith can move mountains, Jesus said so. This mountain was not meant to be moved. I’m working through finding the peace that Dylan’s life was set to end that day no matter what anyone did, no matter how much he was loved, no matter how many prayed on his behalf.
That is the comfort. Yes, my son died in a tragic accident. Yes his body was broken beyond repair. Those thoughts are certainly not comforting. They hurt, picturing him lying there a year and a half later cuts me so deeply I cannot put it into words. But I believe God doesn’t let us leave this place without fulfilling our life’s purpose. For God to take him that day, for God to not answer the prayers of hundreds, possibly thousands of people crying out to him – there had to have been a good reason. It releases us from our guilt of what if and what could’ve been done.
Nothing could have changed it. I know this because we tried, with all our might. We had the faith.
This is still not an easy thing to swallow for me. This concept that Dylan was only supposed to live for 15 years and 10 months plus 7 days. It seems to my human mind that he had so much left to accomplish. But in my faith filled heart I’m trying to see it from an eternal perspective. God knows what he is doing. Dylan’s life had the impact it was destined to have from the moment God created him. He didn’t make a mistake of having him born to Ben and I, it was not by chance that he was raised with his two sisters in this big loving family in a small VT community that knew him and helped raise him up. His life had meaning. I can only grasp a bit of what that meaning may have been…I’m sure over the course of whatever years I have left the purpose of his life will become clearer. I look forward to the day I see him again, wrap him up in my arms and ask God to show me his wisdom so I can understand fully the purpose of this pain.