There are many questions that we have! What I witnessed from Janni and Steve was amazing trust! They truly trusted God with Kole! That has not changed! They are glad Kole is truly in God's hands. That trust came from studying God's Word and intense prayer! They had to know who they were trusting. They discovered in depth and detail, our loving God! He walked beside them and Kole the whole way, never leaving them or forsaking them! They will always cling to Him for clinging to God has been engraved into their being! My Aunt Jane had taught me about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego passing through the firery furnace in Daniel chapter 3. Her Beth Moore Bible Study pointed out that passing through a firery trial leading a person into heaven is the best refinning we can imagine. Why, because it brings the ultimate healing of body, mind, and soul! If Kole's body would have been healed here, he would still have to struggle with his fleshly sin nature. His mind and soul would still be struggling with sin. Now ,that has been healed as well. I did not necessarily see it that way before, but I do now! I was willing to take the sin nature and work with it! I was thinking today, as I was talking to a friend about our childhood memories, that our biggest growing times in childhood comes through failure! God does not need to be taught! He also never fails nor needs to. He does not need to grow or learn. His love is perfect. His plans are higher than our ways. We need to be taught and so, in His great mercy, He allows His children to experience disappointment! I am sure it is hard for Him to allow us to struggle and yet He knows that our character will never grow deep, if all is well all the time! We become stuck in a way! Our minds would be stuck here on this earth, if we had everything we ever wanted right now! God will reward faith and belief in bigger and better ways than we can imagine! It might not come the way we expected it or when we expected it! It all boils down to believing what we cannot see yet! I look around my church on Sunday and say to myself, "we are all here in this building to worship God, who we cannot see and touch"! God told "doubting" Thomas that you believe because you see, but blessed is the man who believes even though he cannot see! Everywhere we are tested on this! We believe we will get up in the morning, even though we cannot see the inner workings of our bodies or the unseen dangers in our environment. Today, my four year old said that we cannot hide from God, because He can find us anywhere. Nothing is hidden from God. There is so much hidden from us! We really are blind in a way! Why did God take Kole when we prayed and believed? Right now the answer is hidden from us. Heaven is hidden from us! Kole is hidden from us! The Throne Room is hidden from us! However, we can find some answers through seeking God through prayer. Also, God's Word is not hidden from us! The enemy of our souls does not want us to discover the hidden treasure found in God's Word! I can tell you that God is pleased not to hide His love for you! It written in the rainbow, in the sunset, in fields of harvest, in the mountains and valleys, in the ocean and in all the beauty of His creation! It is written in His Word and than He inscribes it on your heart! I find myself asking God all the time to reaffirm His love for me. He never fails to do just that! There is no one who loves you, like He does! Believe it or not, God's answer of "no"---was not a mean and unloving answer! It was not a punishment! It was His best answer for both Kole and the rest of us! We just have to believe in what we cannot see!

God makes us all so different! He tutors us "One on One" (Psalms 119)! He prepares us for our individual roll on this earth! Mine is quite small! For I spend so much time pondering, I do not always get a whole lot accomplished in the physical realm. I am not very efficient. I would make a terrible doctor and an even worse secretary! Anyway, do not feel unworthy if you question and struggle! Your heavenly "Tutor" is preparing you for His assignment for you. He is a patient teacher. Through this whole process with Kole, I have fallen many times. I have struggled with doubt and have mis-interpreted what God was trying to say and where He was moving. In times alone with God , I almost felt God brush back my hair in a very tender way and say to my heart "you are learning my dear child, get back up so I can continue teaching you"! He is so patient and does not expect perfection, just our attention and willingness to learn. He is the most kind and loving teacher! The enemy of our souls is trying his hardest to get us to give up on God or to get us to "think" God has given up on us. God never gives up on us!!!! We have to be tenacious in our pursuit of God, because we will get hit with these two temptations daily. God will never be tempted to give up on you. Reading the Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament will give evidence of this. I love the fact that Jesus chose very regular people, who had much to learn! They had their share of failure and still remained His beloved disciples. However, Jesus never failed them. His love never failed them. His death did not fail them! They did not understand everything Jesus was attempting to teach them when they were with Him, and yet it all became clearer as time went on! Now, I am sure the 12 disciples see Jesus' teaching as crystal clear as they are seated around the throne of heaven by the crystal clear "river of the water of life". Perhaps, Kole is sitting with them, who knows! Out of all the humans who were a part of Kole's journey, Kole is the only one who understands God's decision right now!


Here is an example of the Disciples feeling sad over and not understanding God's plan.

Matthew 17:22-23

"When they (Disciples and Jesus) came together in Galilee, he said to them, 'The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.' And the disciples were filled with grief."

Even when the disciples got to see Jesus come back from the dead, they only had the short extra period of 40 days with Jesus, until Jesus ascended up to heaven.

John 15:17
"Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am going to the Father'? They kept asking, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We don't understand what he is saying."

"Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me'? I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy."

Jesus also says in John 14:1-3
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

Kole loved a song by Audio Adrenaline ---It is about the Father's House--- it goes something like "It's a big big house with lots and lots of rooms---It has a big big yard where we can play football---That's my Father's house". Kole's favorite sport was football! I can still remember him singing that song sitting on his mom's lap in my dinning room.

May our grief be turned to joy!

Jodi