THY will be done...?

“Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.


H. concluded his fast last night. He says that Momma D. was sleeping with A. when A. got up our of bed in the middle of the night. Then next time he told me the story, he said she got up twice. He says he's got a connection to God and that he believes God has done a miracle. "I had a feeling this morning."

Today H. dismissed hospice. He told the hospice doctor he wasn't going to watch his wife starve to death, so has been feeding her meat broth and papaya. He ended her morphine. A. had a bowel movement which he takes to have been a sign of her healing.

X, a woman from a charismatic church has been with them all afternoon. She has told H. that he should believe God is doing a miracle. "God created A. and knows how her intestines should work. They were meant to digest food! If she vomits up what you give her, rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus! And don't believe those doctors. They don't believe in miracles, so what do you expect them to do?"

I stepped into this just as X was getting ready to leave. She sized me up as One of Those Who Aren't Spiritual, or at least Spiritual Enough. Sigh. Relationships and long obediences can't compete with prophetic preaching and dramatic experiences.

"I'm not going to allow anyone who doesn't believe in miracles in this house," H. announced. (This is just a variation on his default position, Postive Thinking. I wondered if it was meant as a warning for Steve and me.) "I've had enough of mortuaries and talk of death." (Steve has spent the last week helping H. make funeral preparations.)

While I certainly believe God is able to do miracles, I must confess my unbelief: it doesn't seem like He intends to take away A's cancer and give her 40 more years on this planet. I am certain her healing will occur, but I'm not cure it will happen the way H. is currently demanding it.

I am also disturbed for A's sake. She sat up in bed, and took several puffs of a cigarette, but she seemed out of it. She complained she was in pain, so I massaged her back. H. reset the morphine machine, which had been turned off, exclaiming proudly, "She hasn't had any morphine for four hours!"

He and Mamma D. carried on a lively conversation in Farsi, never once including me, which has never before been their practice. A, still sitting up, softly whispered some things in Farsi to them. It was clear they didn't want any singing; so I blessed A. with Aaron's blessing (which caused H. to stop and frown as I said, "the Lord give you peace"), prayed briefly and kissed her goodbye.

I am perplexed and frustrated. Am I missing something wonderful here? Or have H. and Mamma D. gone off the deep end? At what point does one pray for a miracle, and at what point do we pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?"

Any advice?