Two Minutes to Eternity

Marshall Shelley tells the story of his son's short life - just two minutes.The baby boy was born with a "chromosomal abnormality" called Trisomy 13.

After the delivery, the doctor passed the baby to his mom. He was a healthy pink; Then he began to turn blue. His parents held him, and then lost him. "He's gone, said the doctor."

Shelley writes: My chest ached from heaviness. Death is enormous, immense, unstoppable.

The loss was crushing, but mingled with the tears and the terrible pain was something else. I'm not sure I can describe it. It feels like eternity just intersected earth."

Shelley asks, "Why did God create a child to live two minutes?"

and then this realization - He didn't.

He didn't create a baby to live two minutes - or you, to live 40 or even 80 years.

God created each of us for eternity.

(from an article by Marshall Shelley, CT, May 19, 1994)