Faith and Miracles

I've been thinking pretty deeply about faith and prayer lately.

A couple of weeks ago, a routine ultrasound revealed two things: first, we're having a girl (HOORAY!). Second, our baby had tumors growing on the walls of her heart. The doctors suggested these tumors were a significant indicator of a horrific disease where benign tumors spontaneously grow on the body, both inside and out. The side effects included possibly severe physical and mental disfigurement.

In moments like these, I turn most naturally to my faith to find answers. I knew that prayer--a conduit with God--could provide answers that Doctors and science could not. I wanted to pray that I'd have the ability to accept anything that happened. But I couldn't. Remember that part in Huck Finn where he says, "you can't pray a lie"? It's true. You can't.

The problem? Well, I know God knows what's best for me, but I also know that sometimes "what's best for me" is a euphemism for: the road up ahead is going to be hard. "Okay," one side of my heart argued, "I think I can handle hard...." but for the first time in my life, this trial was about my precious unborn daughter, not about me. I pled instead that He heal her.

For those who read this who subscribe to the same faith as I do, talk of miracles and faith and healing isn't unfamiliar. In fact, it's something that Mormons wholeheartedly believe in. I have friends of other faiths who also believe in miracles. However, I also know of those (both within and without of my faith) that chalk most stuff up to coincidence; to believe otherwise, I suppose, boggles the logical mind and sometimes makes a higher power seem capricious.

Why are some healed and some are not? How much is coincidence and how much really is intervention? I don't know the answers to some of those hard questions. I know such trials don't occur because God loves us, or that He doesn't love us; nor is it that He doesn't hear us. He does love us. He does hear us. The bottom line is, though, that sometimes really bad stuff happens to really good people. And sometimes, He grants a reprieve.

The good news is that we got such reprieve. The short end of the story is that 10 days later, the pediatric cardiologist could find nothing wrong with our baby girl's heart. The tumors seen previously have totally disappeared; no need for a follow up visit, nothing further necessary. Some will say that God had nothing to do with it. But I believe otherwise.

Like I said, I don't have all the answers, but I feel like I know some stuff I didn't know before this all happened: first, God offers tremendous amounts of comfort and assurance in our darkest moments; second, faith may not be easily explained, but faith clearly and obviously enables us to "hush our fears" and empowers us to see the purpose and reason behind even the most seemingly random events in our life. Last, sometimes, He says "yes."