Where is the mercy?

The past few days have been incredibly hard and emotional for me. Christmas has come and gone and now I am left to face dismal January days and the death of my third child. I scrutinize my thoughts and find myself not as I believe I should be. I am ready now. I am ready to let go. I am ready to face what seems the most difficult thing I have ever faced. The agony of waiting is wearing me down. I wonder how much lower I can get? And, then, of course, comes the guilt for feeling this way.

It just seems to me that God, if he isn't going to heal this baby, that it would be merciful of him to go ahead and take him. Why all of this waiting? Why all of this suffering? I see how I truly think of God. I am ready to let go but because I am ready he is going to make me endure all 40 weeks of pregnancy, because I must not have had enough yet. He is cruel to me in my thoughts today. He is unkind. He is unmerciful. For the first time in all of this I have cried out, "Why? Why us? Why my little boy? Why are you doing this?"

And then, I wonder, in a brief, flickering moment, if perhaps it is God's mercy that he is making my heart ready to say goodbye. Perhaps I should stop seeing it as an indictment against my motherhood and more a mercy that I am being made ready to do the impossible.