"Why, God?"

The question echoed back from the unhearing walls, muted, but not quieting the anguish... and the anger... that the young husband felt.  Some years before, darkness had descended into their lives when his young wife had been diagnosed with an incurable disease.  His grief was multiplied as the years passed and the disease took its inexorable toll on his darling wife's health and mind.

In the beginning, the insidious disease didn't even have a name, "We don't know" was the doctor's only offer to the frightened couple.  After some years, a diligent doctor gave them a name for the dark intruder in their lives, and other compassionate men and women of medicine confirmed the diagnosis.  "It" had a name, and "It" was terminal.  The young husband couldn't even say the word "terminal" for months after.  His worst nightmare had turned into something real, something that was ruthlessly going to separate him from the Love of his life, and take away his young son's mother before the infant would have time to know her... to remember her touch and her love.

Many years before they met, and for years after, both the young husband and his beautiful young wife had prayed for God to find a way to use them for His purposes.  They couldn't know that God had heard them, and that God had already prepared an answer for them.  You see, God experiences Time differently than His creation does.  To Him *all* times are "Now", and in that "Now" He was listening to other prayers in the past, present, and future, prayers that He had decided to answer along with the young couple's.  Knowing what He had to allow the young couple to go through in order to answer their prayers and the prayers of the others, God remembered His own pain, a lonely cross and a tomb.  He grieved for the young couple, their young son as yet unborn, and the three children that the young couple would lose in the early years of their relationship.

In the Present, the years passed slowly for the young husband, the torture of watching his wife deteriorate, of watching her lose her mind to the dark intruder, brought him back to God over and over again.  As those years passed, the husband's prayers changed.  At first he prayed for healing and the restoration of his Love's health... then the prayers turned angry, and the young man fought with God and demanded to know "Why, God?"... more time passed, and the prayers became laced with the husband's grief and pain, the "Why, God?" became a plea for comfort and understanding... finally, the peace came, in little bits and at unexpected times, and the "Why, God?" became the quiet plea of a child asking it's father to explain something that hurt ever so much.  Nearer to the end, the young husband had the strength to ask God to take his dearly beloved Home, to release her from the dark intruder's grasp... and God answered, and said "Yes".

Four years passed, a dark time, as the young widower and his child learned what it meant to have little and to depend on God for their needs.  There were times that the young father thought that they would perish, or that he would lose his mind to the pain, and the word "alone" became forever etched in his mind as "ALONE".  A few years after his wife's diagnosis, and before her death, he had taken the small amount of information that they'd been able to find on the disease, put it in order, and had begun to copy it and send it out to other families where the dark intruder had made itself known.  The young father and his child didn't have much, but they continued to do this and tried to help the others as best they could.  God waited.

Things began to change slowly for the two of them.  Bills were caught up, God started sending things in the most unexpected ways.  Money when his income wouldn't go far enough, broken things that others tossed out were fixed and put to use in their home, a barter with a client that allowed the purchase of a new computer... and Internet access, donations of software and services, and even a better car.  Sometimes the gifts from God's hand would be things that were only "wants" and not "needs".  The young man made it a family tradition to thank God every day for His meeting their needs.

In 1997, a new thing found life; an idea born of pain and grief, nurtured with tears and a deep empty sense of loss, and tempered by anger and by faith.  God, always in the "Now", answered hundreds of prayers from all over the world and from many different times, simultaneously, and answered the young husband's prayer and question "Why, God?" as well.  The new thing was just a website on the Internet, and a little later, a listserv.  But, oh, the impact in the lives of families and others where the dark intruder had left his mark!

The young husband... widower... father... now knows what God's answer was to his and his Love's prayers for service.  He understands the "Why" now, too, and he's content to spend as much of his life as God requires to keep the website and listserv alive and meeting needs in the lives of families and individuals where the dark intruder still attacks.

Dear Reader, the Creator does not always allow us to know the answer to the question "Why, God?", but in this case He did.  Were you able to see, and understand, God's answer to the young husband's oft repeated question of "Why?", in this very true story?


It's YOU !

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I tried to keep the MON alive as long as I could.  However, I am very sorry that the MON is no longer available for your mitochondrial disorder-related needs.  I simply could not continue to operate it with the opposition that I was receiving from a few folk in the mitochondrial community who actively and viciously attacked the MON, my friends, myself, and even my son.  When the stress from this began to affect my personal health, and my son was hurt by the thoughtless actions of these few discontents, I was forced to bring things to a close.  I am truly sorry.

God grant us all peace from those who would hurt the innocent rather than help them.

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