LorMarie
-
01:10:10 am on April 2, 2008 | # |
I can remember way back when I was about 14, I needed to have corrective surgery. My then pastor told me that I had a choice. I could believe God to heal me or I could go to the doctor. Being “forced” to feel that I had to make such a choice was a bit traumatic. Admittedly, I did not have the faith my pastor possessed and ended up having the very sucessful surgery…THANK GOD! It was only years later that I learned I didn’t have to have that kind of faith in order to please God. With that said, how are we supposed to handle those types of situations? Why on earth do some people believe that medical professionals and God are mutually exclusive? Eleven year-old Madeline Neumann died as a result of such a doctrine. The poor girl had a treatable condition known as diabetic ketoacidosis. Yes, it was treatable. Instead, her parents decided that her treatment would come via prayer alone. Her parents are quoted in the article and I have to say, it provides a glimpse into the psyche of the doctrine:
“We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering.”
The young girl did not recover, but died anyway. Some may desperately argue that she was in fact healed (waiting, oh waiting for someone to bring in Isaiah 53:5 in attempt to refute my claim that it’s a false doctrine). That would be stretching things a mile more than they should be. There is no healing when you succumb to a disease. I’m not going to sit here and bash the parents since they were victims of a false doctrine as I was. But, they could have used what’s called Godly wisdom. Yes, God does give us good old plain common sense. But too many of us are looking for some spectacular sign. I can only hope that this doctrine and experience does not cause them to lose faith altogether. That’s where our firm foundations come in. These losses, as horrible as they are, can and should be used as learning experiences.
