What Dying Children Teach Doctors About Living

If God is good and God is provident, why do children die? It's the question every parent in a pediatric ICU eventually asks — and the one Dr. Dan Falco has spent twenty-five years sitting with rather than answering. In this conversation he makes an unusual claim: that even when a situation seems to argue against God's goodness, He is still good, still present, still at work. We talk about the stories that nearly broke that conviction, what it means to seek God's presence in real time, and how students can prepare before their own storm arrives. -------------------------------- Dr. Dan Falco was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was raised in the Catholic faith but found that his beliefs were more in line with Protestantism whilst in Chicago for medical school. He married one of his best friends from high school and they have 4 wonderful children, Joshua, Lauren, Cole, and Jack. They gained two more children when their two oldest got married to Briah and Ryan. They moved to Sacramento in 2001 after his training at LPCH at Stanford. He became the director of the PICU in 2011 and handed over the reins of leadership in 2017. When something tragic happened in the PICU, he found himself writing about it, unsure if he was writing to remember the events or in order to forget. He went through some burnout in 2016 that led him to a Christian counselor who helped him see that he was suffering from PTSD. In the course of counseling, she helped him recognize a question was sitting on the margins of his life, undermining his faith: “If God is good and all powerful, then why do children suffer.?” Although he never got an answer to that question, he did hear God say, “It’s not for you to know why children suffer. I know they’re suffering; they’re my children too. It’s your job to take care of them. I will only promise you my presence.” When he went back and read all the stories he had written, he realized they were all about how he experienced God in the tragedy. That’s when he set out to make a book about his experiences. --------------------------------- SHOW NOTES: Purchase "Encountering God in Life's Storms" https://www.amazon.com/Encountering-G... Questions or comments? Contact: studentpulsepodcast@cmda.org. The world needs your healing hands—and your heart. Join thousands of healthcare professionals at the Global Missions Health Conference, November 12th through 14th in Louisville. Be equipped. Be inspired. Register now at https://MedicalMissions.com.