Monday, April 13, 2009

The Power of Prayer

I may be accused of baiting for Christian readers with that post title; but it is legitimately what this post is about.

Disclaimer to Christian readers: it is not my intent to offend you, but I have some very strong emotions and opinions regarding this subject. It makes me say fuck a lot. So if the word fuck bothers you, you may want to stop reading now. You've already seen it twice, and I assure you it will appear again. Several times. The word shit, too. (I told you to stop reading...)

My first husband was/is an atheist. He and I had many, many discussions and disagreements about the existence and sovereignty of God. His reason and logic were excellent, and a fair call of the debate would always judge him as the winner; but discussions with him never caused me to question the existence of God, or his absolute omniscience.

No. The first thing that ever caused me to question God was the true story of a little girl who had a terrible illness. I don't remember the details anymore. What I remember is that the little girl was in the hospital, and several doctors were working day and night to diagnose and try to find a cure for her before it was too late. The little girl's family issued a plea for everyone to pray for the child to be healed; for God's mercy and loving healing.

The doctors figured out what was wrong, administered the proper treatments, and the girl got better. Do you know where the family gave the credit for the healing? I'll bet you can guess.

They thanked all the people who prayed. Without those prayers, they were convinced that their daughter would have died.

What. The. Fuck.

So. You are telling me that God imposed a life threatening illness upon an innocent little girl, and would have let her die, except that lots of people begged him not to? And if enough people had not begged him to spare her, then too fucking bad! You guys are not groveling enough! The child dies!

Dude. Fuck that shit.

Honestly. Does that even make any sense, when you think about it? I remember always being told to pray for what I wanted/needed, but then add "but your will be done." I guess so God didn't think I was barking orders at him or something. I can understand that; I don't like people barking orders at me, either. But seriously, what good does it do to pray if you can't even say "I really want this; even if it wasn't what you originally intended?" What good is prayer at all, if this God of yours is going to do whateverthefuck he wanted to do in the first place? And how loving and gracious is this God if the single prayer of a frightened mother isn't enough to save her child? What kind of sadistic maniac requires a megachurchfull of people begging for the life of one little girl? WHAT KIND OF GOD KILLS LITTLE GIRLS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

FUCK.

I know what you are going to say. "We are God's children. Do you give your child everything she asks for?"

The first thing I will say to you is don't end a sentence with a preposition.

The next thing I will say to you is no, of course I don't. Sometimes I can't (an excuse God can't use, right?), and sometimes she wants something that is not good for her. Either way, I always take the time to explain to her why I can't or won't let her have what she wants. If she doesn't understand, then I try to explain it another way. If she still doesn't understand, I lock her in the cellar.

I kid. I haven't locked her in the cellar since we had to replace the door from all the clawing damage.

JESUS, PEOPLE! CALM DOWN! IT'S A JOKE! I DON'T EVEN HAVE A CELLAR!

Seriously, though. Even if I did lock her in the cellar, it's still not as bad as being cast into a lake of fire to burn for all eternity. Which is what we get if we piss off God.

But he loves us.


UPDATE: The difference in opinion regarding the existence of God was not what broke up my first marriage. Just so you know.

ANOTHER UPDATE: If I did have a cellar, I would keep wine in it. Not kids.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahh... blogging can be so very therapeutic, can't it? It's a good, safe place to vent out some of that anger and pent up frustration. I'll bet you didn't even know you had it in you.

One of the things I love about you is how you can go from full caps screaming to taking a moment to correct someone's grammar.

I'm really enjoying the blog so far and am looking forward to hearing more. It's one of those, "all will be revealed in time" kind of things I guess.

N said...

Yes, Gruntled, all will be revealed in time. If I tried to sit and write everything at once, it would be way too long; plus I wouldn't have anything left to blog about. :-)

As for the grammar, if I didn't inject a little humor in there, it would start to sound like I'm a joyless, hopeless, miserable, angry person; you know, like atheists are expected to be. So, I'm going to try to practice a little humor here and there.

I'm no comedienne, but I'm working on it. Feel free to critique...

Lord Runolfr said...

I think this video sums up your attitude in a slightly more humorous (and less specific) way. You should get a kick out of it.