The Child Who Asked the Right Question

It was the kind of Sunday morning that felt too bright for grief. The sanctuary windows glowed with spring sun, and the daffodils by the church steps bowed gently in the breeze. But inside, in the fourth pew from the back, Ellen Harris sat stiffly beside her grandson, her hand clenched too tightly around the little boy’s. She hadn’t wanted to come today. Not after the week they’d had. Not after burying her daughter on Thursday.

The boy beside her—eight-year-old Daniel—was quiet. Too quiet, maybe, for someone who had just lost his mother. But Ellen wasn’t sure how children processed things like this. She barely understood how she was breathing.

Pastor Lee’s voice echoed from the pulpit, smooth and clear, talking about resurrection. About how death did not have the final word. About how Christ had already overcome. Ellen barely heard him. Her mind kept drifting back to the hospital room, the IV lines, the smell of antiseptic, and the way her daughter’s hand had grown cold in hers. No sermon could soften that memory.

Daniel tugged at her sleeve.

She looked down. His eyes were wide and serious, the kind of eyes that belonged on someone older.

“Grandma,” he whispered, “do you think God made a mistake?”

The question hit her like a wind to the chest.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came. Her throat was tight, her voice buried under the weight of unspoken grief.

Daniel stared ahead again, legs swinging slightly above the floor. He didn’t seem to need her answer right away.

After the service, they didn’t stay for coffee hour. Ellen needed air. She led him out the side door, past the church garden and toward the willow trees near the pond behind the lot. It was quiet there. The water shimmered gently, reeds bending at the edges.

“Why did you ask that?” she finally said.

He shrugged. “Because Mom was good. Really good. And she loved Jesus.”

Ellen swallowed hard. “She did.”

“She said God always has a reason for everything,” he said, brushing his fingers through the grass, “but I don’t get it. If He can do anything, why didn’t He stop her from getting sick?”

She closed her eyes. She had asked herself the same question every night since the diagnosis. Every hour since the funeral. Sometimes screaming it into her pillow. Sometimes just whispering it into the silence.

She’d grown up in the church. Raised her children in the Word. But nothing had prepared her for how faith feels when it runs straight into heartbreak.

“Maybe,” she said softly, “it’s okay not to understand. Maybe God’s not asking us to.”

Daniel picked up a pebble and threw it toward the pond. It skipped once, then sank. “Then what is He asking?”

That was when it happened—something shifted. Not in the sky or in the breeze, but inside her. A tenderness. A quiet thought that didn’t come from her.

“He’s asking us to trust,” she said, not sure if she was answering him or herself.

Daniel didn’t say anything, just pulled at a blade of grass.

“I don’t know why He let her go,” she continued, “but I know He was there. Every night. Every hour. And He’s here now.”

He looked up at her, eyes wet but steady. “Even when it hurts?”

She nodded. “Especially when it hurts.”

They sat like that for a while. Ellen’s hand found his again—not clenching now, just holding. Gentle. Honest.

Weeks passed. Spring melted into summer. Ellen started showing up again at Bible study, her voice quieter than before but more certain. Daniel began asking more questions—hard ones, honest ones. And no one in the congregation rolled their eyes or tried to hush him. Because sometimes, the questions that make grown men squirm are the ones that open heaven’s door just a little wider.

One Sunday, during communion, Pastor Lee spoke gently about how even Jesus once cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And how that moment—raw, aching, unanswered—was not a sign of doubt, but of deep belonging. Of a Savior who entered our sorrow fully.

Daniel turned toward Ellen then. Didn’t speak. Just looked. She knew what he meant.

Jesus had asked a question, too.

Another Sunday, during children’s time, Pastor Lee invited the little ones up front. He knelt among them, smiling, waiting for some innocent remark about sheep or mustard seeds. But Daniel raised his hand.

“Pastor?” he asked, “If we don’t always understand what God’s doing, is it okay to say we’re sad or angry?”

The room stilled.

Pastor Lee blinked, then smiled. “Yes,” he said. “That’s more than okay. That’s part of praying. Even Jesus wept.”

Daniel nodded thoughtfully. And the older members in the pews—those who had buried spouses, those with prodigal children, those with years of silent suffering behind tight Sunday smiles—somehow looked a little freer that morning.

Ellen began writing letters to her daughter. Not to send, of course. Just to say the things she didn’t get to say. She slipped them in the back of her Bible, behind Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Sometimes, Daniel found her in the kitchen humming softly to herself, folding laundry with a lightness that hadn’t been there before. Grief never left. But it was no longer her only companion.

One evening in late August, as the cicadas sang in the trees, Daniel sat on the porch steps, legs tucked under him, a notebook in his lap. Ellen stepped out, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

He looked up. “A question.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He read aloud: “If Jesus never leaves us, does that mean Mom wasn’t alone when she died?”

Ellen sat beside him, slow and heavy. She didn’t answer right away. The light had turned golden, brushing everything in a hush of peace.

“No,” she said at last. “She wasn’t alone. Not for one second.”

Daniel nodded and went back to his notebook. He didn’t write anything else. Just underlined the question.

That night, Ellen cried—not the hard sobs of anger or despair, but the tears that come when a soul begins to heal.

Because sometimes, it’s not the answers that set us free.

Sometimes, it’s the child who asks the right question.