St. Gabriel of Georgia on why God takes children young

The post recounts a story told by St. Gabriel of Georgia to a woman who had lost her child and asked why the young die. St. Gabriel relates that in a certain village a believing woman, who had lost her only son, grieved before God. She said she had endured much for love of Him: insults, poverty, hardships.

No one else in the village believed except her, yet God took her child. That night the woman fell asleep and dreamed: angels took her before the Lord and conveyed her complaints. Then she heard the Lord's voice: "Ask the woman what she wants."

"Return my child to me," she answered. "Do you want to see your child?" the Lord asked. "Well, I am a mother, of course I do," she answered weeping. "Show her her child!" the Lord commanded. They brought the child and she rejoiced.

"What do you now seek from Me?" the Lord asked. "Why did you take him?" she complained. Then the Lord commanded the angels: "Show her what her son would have done if I had not taken him." And suddenly, as in a film, the woman saw terrible sins her son would have committed, and then the terrible fire of hell.

"Return him again to paradise!" the mother began to weep and beg the Lord. The Lord commanded and the boy was again returned to paradise. And then He said to her: "Because of your goodness and love I took your son to Myself.

Do not think that I do not know whom and when to take." St. Gabriel presents this narrative as an answer to the question of why some leave life young.