Touching the Third Rail with Julia

I spend a good deal of time reading blogs written by other people - yeah ok, way too much time some days. Regardless, there are people out there in this great big world who I like to check in on from time to time. Sometimes I know these people in real life (hello friends!) and sometimes I know them only from their own blog, generally found through the friend of a friend or community listing sort of thing. Regardless of how I know them, they often make me stop and think. I like thinking. Therefore, I like reading.

Julia recently posted a well written question and I felt compelled to answer as best I could. But in trying to be brief, I fear that part of my explanation may have gotten lost in the shuffle.

I would encourage anyone who is not here by way of Julia's site to read her posting now, before continuing to read my response. Post Is Here

Now for my expanded response (I really did try to be brief in her comment section): I’m not sure that I can answer your question to any degree of satisfaction, but here’s my stab at it. I believe the answer lies in the relationship with God. It is my understanding that different faiths have a different idea of what the relationship is with God – and that sometimes those relationship definitions are not far apart.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (LDS for short.) The relationship I have with God is one that He is literally my Heavenly Father, that He has designed and created this world for all of His children and has a purpose and a plan for each of us. I believe that He allows things to happen in our lives without interceding in order to allow us to grow and to have our faith tested. And I believe that we are encouraged to petition Him in prayer for our own needs and wants as well as for the needs and wants of others. I strongly believe that He hears and answers every prayer that is offered to Him, just not always in the way we want Him to. I also believe that he knows the desires of our hearts without our prayers but He expects us to petition Him anyway.

I have often uttered “those” questions while in the midst of personal crisis: Why me? Please, Lord, won’t you save this child? Why not me? Why now? Won’t you please help me? – of course always me centered. Not very community oriented for sure, but I didn’t intend, nor would I intend to this day, that my prayer was any more important that any other person’s prayer. My child’s life was not worth more than you child’s life, but in my moment of crisis, all I could see was the ending of my child’s opportunity for life along with the end to the hopes and dreams that came with that child. For that, I reached out personally and selfishly to my Father in Heaven to help me understand. But there are many other times when I have reached out in prayer for someone else's child, for someone who is ill, for someone who is struggling. In a perfect world, we would always remember to think of others even when we are in the midst of crisis. But that's not reality - not for most people. For those who have gained the faith and wisdom and experience needed to be able to reach out to others despite personal crisis, I say well done. Personally, I'm still working on that compassionate Christlike attribute.

I do not believe that God micromanages our lives. In fact, I believe quite the opposite. While He has a plan for each of us, He gives us the opportunity to live our lives and make our own choices – very much like we give our children the opportunity to live and choose and grow through experience, like our parents gave us as we grew from being children to being adults – all with the expectation that we maintain our relationship with Him, often through prayer. Just like we want our children to talk to us or like our parents wanted us to talk to them, God wants us to talk to Him. We talk to Him through prayer: we tell Him what is on our mind, we tell Him about our day, we ask for His help, we thank Him for blessings. But most importantly we talk. And He really does answer us. Prayer is a conversation, not a one way communication. We have to be willing to speak and to listen when we pray. And just like our parents didn't always give us everything we asked for, our Heavenly Father sometimes answers our prayers with the word no. He knows what is best for us. He wants to give us every blessing. He wants us to be happy. But sometimes the blessing we want the most is not what we need and it's his job as a parent to withhold that blessing.

I do not believe that being LDS or Catholic or Hindu or Jewish or Islamic or any other faith gives us special entitlement the way you felt the author was conveying in her use of “a Jewish child” in her editorial. Personally, I think she added the extra word without thinking about how it might be perceived by others given that her audience may also be predominately Jewish?? (just a thought). I know I have been guilty of inserting unncessary words - words which change the appearance of the context - without thinking. Maybe it's easier for me to give the author the benefit of the doubt since I seem to understand her point of view from the whole prayer/miracle standpoint??

And I am from the camp that believes miracles happen every day all around us. If God is not dead, why would miracles cease? [which leads to an even bigger question in my mind: If God is not dead, why would He stop speaking to mankind and have us rely on ancient text to guide our lives?. I think of this question often when people question the validity of modern day prophets and scripture, but that is a topic for another discussion]

As to the side note question: The notion that the author believes the life of her child was a miracle does not necessarily lessen the notion that the doctors were instruments of God in that miracle. All of her complications were signs that individually may not have been a warning sign of the clotting disorder that nearly claimed the life of her son. The knowledge that the medical profession was equipped with made it possible for her to be closely monitored. Think of all the stress she avoided by not knowing she had a clotting disorder. Think of all the precious time that her child gained by continuing to develop in her womb, all the while being closely monitored -- time that greatly dimminished the odds of death or complications of a much earlier premature birth. Those things can be viewed as miracles without saying that the doctors had no role. They absolutely had a roll, and thank God they were there and monitoring the situation.

Anyway, it's always a bit of a dangerous thing to try and "discuss" religion on the internet but it's also nice that Julia opened the door in a very respectful manner and I appreicate that she opened her blog for comments on the subject. I just couldn't take up all of her comment space to try and explain, hopefully in a halfway logical manner, how it is that we can claim divine intervention for ourselves.

Your thoughts?