This past weekend, my mother had a severe health emergency when she was home alone with my child. My child was able to call 911 and summon the help which likely saved my mother’s life.
At the hospital, she was treated aggressively by talented doctors and nurses, with remarkable medications, and is expected to make a full recovery.
Whilst at the hospital, my mother’s LDS Bishop came to visit with one of his counselors. They lauded the blessing that my child who was there to help. Also the blessings of the first-responders who arrived so quickly to assist.
I politely remained silent.
In my non-believing mind, however, I suggested that a real “blessing” would have been that my mother never had the condition which caused the emergency in the first place
If that isn’t an acceptable “blessing”, why couldn’t her condition be instantly healed after she received her priesthood blessing? Rather than requiring the intervention of medical professionals and powerful, potentially dangerous medications?
I also wonder what The Bishop and his counselor would be saying to us if my mother had passed away alone at the home, or if the medications had not worked properly and she died at the hospital.
They would probably say something similar to what they said when my father passed away after a priesthood blessing assuring him that he would recover. “Heavenly Father needed your father. It was his time.”
How can we have it both ways? If a believer recovers, it’s a blessing or a miracle. If they don’t, it’s God’s will. As I observed in a previous post:
“When I look out upon the cosmos, the universe seemingly behaves as I have described its godless version; chaotic and indifferent. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. We sometimes get what our hearts most desire, and more often we don’t. The physical laws of the universe act as indifferently as one might expect them to do. Hurricanes flood Christian homes. Earthquakes bury Buddhists. Tsunamis drown Hindus. Disease kills the young, the old, the innocent, and the evil alike. In short, the universe works almost precisely as if God isn’t there. Maybe He isn’t. Maybe He never was.”
Lest the reader think me ungrateful, I am exceptionally grateful that my mother has a community to help her, who quickly reacted to help their friend and neighbor. Thank you to all.