Desperate call for prayer for a friend

This isn't directly about us, but it is about the Jones quints. One of our beloved volunteers shockingly and suddenly lost her toddler son Jack in a tragic accident. I am asking for fervent, faithful prayer for Gina and her family from those of you who are believers in Christ Jesus. This news has me reeling, and I never even met Jack; I cannot begin to imagine the depth and breadth of the pain of this precious family, including Jack's young siblings. Please pray they will be drawn closely and eternally into the Father's everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27: "The Eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.")

Part of the devotional I read tonight follows:

I turn with dismay from church services that are treated like radio talk shows where everything sounds like chipper, frisky, high-spirited chatter designed to make people feel lighthearted and playful and bouncy. I look at those services and say to myself: Don't you know that people are sitting out there who are dying of cancer, whose marriage [or life] is a living hell, whose children have broken their hearts [or died suddenly], who are barely making it financially, who have just lost their job [or their child], who are lonely and frightened and misunderstood and depressed [and angry and rocked to the core by grief]? And you are going to try to create an atmosphere of bouncy, chipper, frisky, light-hearted, playful worship?

And, of course, there will be those who hear me say that and say: O, so you think what those people need is a morose, gloomy, sullen, dark, heavy atmosphere of solemnity?

No. What they need is to see and feel indomitable joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering and sorrow. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." They need to taste that these church people are not playing games here. They are not using religion as a platform for the same-old, hyped-up self-help that the world offers every day. They need the greatness and the grandeur of God over their heads like galaxies of hope. They need the unfathomable crucified and risen Christ embracing them in love with blood all over his face and hands. And they need the thousand-mile-deep rock of God's word under their feet.

John Piper, http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/sorrowful-yet-always-rejoicing [bracketed words mine]

The thousand-mile-deep rock of God's word says all the days of Jack's life were written in God's book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16). We do not know why his days were so few, but we do know from Scripture that God's purposes are never thwarted, that He IS love, and that He is more than able to redeem this agony for eternal good in the lives of Gina's family and many others. 

To God be the glory for Jack's life,

Carrie