When God Says No

Seven years ago, my son died just after birth.

There was no warning. No signs. No alarms raised during the pregnancy. Everything seemed healthy. Everything looked normal. And then suddenly, it wasn’t. An undetected umbilical cord injury—silent, devastating—took him from us within moments of his first breath.

It was no one’s fault. Not the doctors. Not the nurses. Not mine. Not even God’s.

It was biology. A tragic twist in a system that mostly works, but not always.

I’ve carried that truth with me for seven years, and it has both broken and remade me.

The grief, yes. The kind that settles deep and stays there, forever shifting the way you see the world. But also, the confusion. Especially when it comes to prayer, healing, and faith. I’ve struggled with the way people talk about medical healing as answered prayer. Because if that’s true—if a surgery goes well or a disease is cured because God said “yes”—then what does it mean when the answer is no?

We prayed. Of course we did. Fiercely. Desperately. Right there, in the delivery room, while a team of professionals tried to revive our son. My husband and I are devoted followers of Jesus. Faith isn’t new to us—it’s how we’ve always moved through the world. But that day, prayer didn’t change the outcome.

And that has forced me to look at my faith in new ways.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe:
We don’t live in Heaven yet. Earth is still a place where things go terribly wrong. Where biology fails. Where suffering enters without reason or fairness. Where good people lose children and prayers go seemingly unanswered.

But suffering is not a curse. And healing is not a reward for good behavior or spiritual merit. I don’t believe that anymore.

What I do believe is that God knits humans together with certain gifts—nurses, doctors, surgeons, scientists. Their work, their skill, their knowledge is a kind of grace. When medical healing happens, it’s because people have trained, studied, sacrificed, and showed up. Of course God is in that. But it doesn’t mean God chose one baby to live and another to die.

Because if I go down that road, then I have to ask:

why wasn’t my son chosen? Why did God say no to us?

And that’s not a weight I believe we’re meant to carry.

I think sometimes, in our Christian communities, we say things we believe we’re supposed to say. “God answered our prayers.” “It’s a miracle.” “He’s so good.” And I don’t fault anyone for that—especially in moments of relief and celebration. But those words can carry unintended weight. They can make those of us whose prayers didn’t bring healing feel like we failed. Or worse, like our child was forgotten.

So I’ve made peace with a different view.
Biology is broken sometimes.
Life here is fragile and messy.
And yet, God is still good.
Not because everything works out, but because God meets us in what doesn’t.

I am endlessly thankful for the two children I now hold in my arms. And I’m thankful, too, for the doctors and nurses who helped them survive birth. I thank God, yes—but I also thank them. Because they’re the ones who showed up and made a difference. And when mistakes happen—because they do—I try to offer grace. We are all at the mercy of biology in the end.

This reflection isn’t meant to be a theological argument. It’s simply where I’ve landed after living in the ashes of loss and the mystery of love. If you’ve been there too, if you’ve whispered a prayer over a body that didn’t get to stay, please know this: your faith is not broken. Your hope is not wasted. And your grief is not because you didn’t pray hard enough.

It just happened.
And God is still with you.
Even here.