LP>I like your 'whatever-works' approach.  This is reminding me that while
  >we were discussing prayer, I should have been thinking of the people who
  >pray and are prayed for, and who don't get all better (physically, that
  >is). There was a gentleman on an MS discussion group who was being
  >oppressed by members of his congregation wanting to tell him about
  >'healing'. They seemed to be saying that he was letting god down by
  >needing a wheelchair.  But if miracles become routine, they're not
  >miracles any more.  (Something tells me :-> that you're confident
  >there's no such thing as miracles.)
I get downright mad at people who insist that anyone's troubles are the
result of a lack of faith.  When my daughter died, a member of the
grieving group run by the hospital had had absolute faith that his
daughter would not die, and, when she did die, that she would be raised
from the dead. It was hours after her death before he would turn her
body over to the police. It is, after all, part of the human condition
that we each die eventually (although some die much younger than
others). This man had a double grief to deal with: the grief of his
daughter's death, and the grief of his loss of God.  He was overwhelmed
with sorrow and rage.  I don't know the final outcome of all this, but
all those people who had kept insisting through the months of his
daughter's dying that perfect faith can do anything had created a man
dangerously close to murder and/or suicide.
                                Sondra
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ Raising kids is like trying to herd cats.
--- Opus-CBCS 1.7x via O_QWKer 1.7 
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