Weddings. You either love going to them or you hate them. As for me, I am somewhere in between, I guess. Honestly, I'm not sure that the wedding day is worth all of the expense, stress and fanfare. The funny thing is that although we place so much energy and importance on the wedding day, it still isn't the biggest day of the happy couple's life. The biggest day of their lives is each day thereafter. I know that now after almost forty years of marriage.
At a wedding I attended this past weekend there was a table that honored the memory of the grooms father who had passed away when the boy was an infant. There was a photo of the groom, as a young child, being hugged by his father. A father of whom he had no memory. His father never got the opportunity to teach him how to ride a bike or throw a football. His father was denied the privilege of seeing him graduate college and now there is only an empty chair with a black ribbon tied to it to help us remember that his dad, while absent on his son's wedding day, was there in memory.
On this particular day I was reminded how I and countless others prayed for the young man's father before cancer eventually took his life. I petitioned God over and over to bring a miraculous cure, to reverse the hopeless situation and to transform the diagnosis. Back then, I believed that his healing was possible and that by my faith-filled words and the prayers of others that he could be miraculously healed but after months of struggle he lost his battle with the dreaded disease that ravaged his body.
Having been a Christian for most of my life, I'm at a juncture where I'm not sure that prayer works anymore - at least not in the way that I used to believe that it did. Before anyone casts stones, I guess that I should explain myself. Here's the problem doesn't
Like I said, I prayed for this man, hell, an army of people prayed for him and he didn't get better. So here I sit a little confused as I to try figure out what that says about God's character or our prayers. I do believe that prayer changes our hearts and that prayer can bind us together, giving hope in hopeless situations, however, I not sure that it saves sick people from death.
I want to be clear that my intent isn't to diminish anyone's faith or to crush anyone's hope of a miraculous recovery. I just don't understand why some are healed while others continue to suffer and die. I refuse to imagine a God who needs to be convinced. How silly of me to believe that God doesn't know the gravity of the situation and that He will only act if I ask Him to.
I don't think that I believe in God as a supernatural Santa Claus any longer. A Deity who dispenses healing or sickness; life or death, based on the heart or conduct of the recipients. I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Seeing the photo on the Memorial Table this weekend sent me reeling. Do we really believe that the Creator of all life withholds His compassion and healing until begged to do so?
So just what do I believe now?
I believe that prayer changes our hearts. I believe that prayer binds us together in love and support of one another. I believe that prayer connects us to God in ways, the magnitude of which, we may never understand.
But I no longer believe that prayer changes God's mind about healing the people we love. Otherwise, there would have been no black ribbon tied to an empty chair this past weekend.
Be Well.
Bill
