It’s hard to see God’s plan from the deepest shadows of the valley of death, Frazer said. The road has been “hard and frustrating,” but not without “glimpses of beauty around us from time to time. . . . It’s his story to tell, and we trust him.”

Last month, Frazer and Dana Gieselmann buried their 6-year-old daughter.

Milla, short for Louise Mildred, had her first seizure at 2 years old. She was diagnosed with Batten disease, a rare and fatal disorder of the nervous system. A few weeks later, her younger sister, Elle, received the same diagnosis. (An older sister, Ann Carlyle, doesn’t have the genetic disorder.)

For the past three years, Frazer and Dana have hauled their two girls to doctors’ appointments, held them through seizures, and watched them lose dexterity. Elle was able to start an experimental medication regimen in September; for Milla, it was already too late.

She turned 6 on November 2. Twenty-four days later, her mother posted, “Milla is with Jesus. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

While living out every parent’s worst nightmare, the Gieselmanns’ belief in God’s goodness was tested and stretched. Through countless nights waking up with the girls to one bad medical report after another, the couple leaned heavily on the faith passed down from their parents.

And they leaned on the church, hoping it would be there to catch them.

Faith in the Darkness

“People say to us, ‘I don’t know how you do this,’” Frazer said. “But you don’t get to choose. You don’t have any options. If I don’t put cereal in the girls’ bowls, they won’t eat.”

The couple stands on a foundation of generational faith. Both grew up in the church—Frazer in a nondenominational Christian church, Dana in Baptist or Reformed Baptist churches her father pastored. Both attended Christian schools.

“That [background] has been key for us,” Frazer said. “I didn’t realize how much of the foundation had been laid there.”

Even though the theology wasn’t perfectly taught or lived out, “I’m much less critical of my background and much more appreciative,” Frazer said. “God was getting us ready for what we didn’t know was coming.”

Though the church and school background was important, it was God who “guarded our faith all our lives,” Dana said. “God kept his hand on us.”

Milla herself loved praying. So do her grandparents, who get up at 4 a.m. every day to pray.

“It’s just what we do,” said Rob Richey, the grandfather. A retired pastor and high school Bible teacher, he’s taught many times about God’s sovereignty.

“On this issue of his sovereignty and man’s responsibility, God’s not told us how it fits together, but he’s told us that both [his control and our responsibility] are true at the same time,” Richey said. “What happens when God doesn’t tell us everything, but it’s the truth? We have faith.”

‘What happens when God doesn’t tell us everything, but it’s the truth? We have faith.’

Milla suffered and died far too young. God is good and in control.

Both are true, he said, even though we can’t see how they fit together. But “I believe with all my heart she’s in the presence of her Savior now.”

Because of this, in the darkest time of his life, after not only losing his granddaughter but also watching his child lose her daughter, Richey’s faith holds.

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