Feel Better Fast

When my sister was a very little girl, she had strep throat. Penicillin was not yet available so her illness was very serious indeed. Her throat was so swollen that only a tiny trickle of water could go down. My mother sat up with her that entire night making sure that there was always a small piece of ice melting on her tongue. And praying. By morning, my sister was much better. The swelling had gone down, her fever had broken and she was out of danger. This story is often told in my family with the following points being:

•       Thank God we have penicillin now
•       This is what parents do
•        Pray. Always pray.

There is probably not a person living who can’t relate to this story - the devoted mother, the fervent prayers, the wonderful recovery. My sister grew up well, had a 52 year marriage, four children, five grandchildren and two great grand children. Good story. 

Stories like this one, nevertheless, tend to get under my skin. It seems when people of faith are confronted with a need for healing, faith suffers. When the stakes are high we get desperate and desperate people trip up. The stakes are never higher than when a loved one is ill. I am conflicted about prayers for the sick because our prayers can so easily become demands. Our faith can morph into entitlement, our petitions slide into a test of our own worthiness or of God’s love.

Have we not heard these statements?

• If you pray, God will heal him
• God will not take so innocent a child
• If you have faith, God will spare her
• He deserves to live and finish the work God has for him

Who deserves pain, injury, death? Who deserves healing? The answer to all these questions is no one. God does not arrange benefit or harm for us based on our goodness or on any logic that we can discern. We can’t make sense of it. We can’t predict the results of it, and we most definitely cannot control it, either by faith or prayer or promises.

For me, it is natural to sit up all night with a sick child and to pray for her recovery. I would do it and I bet you would, too. We hope that Jesus, who healed so many, will heal us. But here is where the problem arises. Although it is good and right to pray, we do not get to order God. This is where a line can be crossed. Here is where we begin to justify our wants, to bargain, to explain. And here is where we lay the burden of the healing on ourselves. Is our faith strong enough? Is our prayer relentless enough? Have we asked too much? Too little? Does God love us enough? 

It is easy, much too easy, to cross that line when we are desperate. Assuming onto oneself the burden of healing is not an act of faith. It’s not an act of love. It is an act of pride. It is pride to think that our own will can heal a loved one, prevent the death of a friend. Only God can do these things.

The Lord watches over the innocent

I was brought very low and he helped me  Psalm 116

God understands though. God knows our desperation, feels everything that we feel and more besides. He understands our grief when we lose someone and our joy when someone is restored. It is in these moments that God finds us and we find God. When we need God the most is when God is readiest to be there. It’s an opening, and no one can resist an opening. So let God in.  God bless.

Next from The Parishioner:  My friend Igῆio invites me into High Society.