Who Do You Trust--Really?

A week ago I had a crazy turn as the hospital doc (we take turns manning the hospital while the others do outpatient clinic). After I'd already admitted two really sick older gentlemen to the hospital we received a phone call that a very sick little girl was also on the way. She had been seen in an outlying clinic and her story was not entirely clear, but from what we could gather, she was nine years old and had been seizing. Her mother had sent her to school earlier that day, apparently normal other than a cough and a sore throat.

At some point in your life, many of you parents may have received a call from the school where you heard, "Come and get Johnny now. He's been in a fight on the playground and he's really in trouble this time!" Well, my patient's mother received a call from school where the teacher told her, "Come and get your daughter now, because she's dying!" Talk about scary.

I examined the little girl in the ER. She was unconscious, responding slightly to pain. She was moving her arm in a strange way that appeared to be what we would call "decerebrate posturing", which means, essentially, that the brain is dying or has died. In spite of the medicine that we gave her to stop the seizures, she seized two more times. We were blessed to have availability of a CT scan from the neighboring town when she arrived, and we were able to rule out bleeding within or around her brain. We performed a lumbar puncture, which looked normal.

Through all of this diagnostic process, the girl's mother began to cry out to God. "Lord," she said, "You know that I only have one daughter. Please spare her! I beg You!" As she prayed, I asked if I could pray along. We prayed together for several minutes, which put all in the room at peace. We asked again and again for the girl's healing and for guidance. Then, we moved her to a hospital bed and really didn't do too much else other than supportive treatment and antibiotics (she had also reportedly been having fevers and we wanted to cover meningitis just in case). We still didn't know what was wrong with her. Infection? Accidental intoxication? Whatever the case was, she didn't seem to be waking up.

About one hour after the girl was placed in a hospital bed, we received a request from the patient's family: "Could we please take her out of the hospital just for an hour or two? We'd like to take her over to the shaman to see if he can heal her." A shaman is a traditional healer. There are many of them around here, and they typically rely upon evil forces in their practice. As a parent, I know that I would do almost anything for my child. However, this patient's parents, after just having prayed to the one true God, were now wanting to turn to Satan for help. This was clearly a double standard.

I entered the girl's room and pleaded with the mother. I asked her, "Who do you trust? Do you trust the power of God or the power of the shaman? I would encourage you to make the right decision." With their child's life on the line, they made the right decision. They stayed in the hospital and maintained their trust in God and in the Christian doctors (who were also confused about the diagnosis and HEAVILY relying on God).

The Lord always answers prayers in the best possible way, though they're not always answered in the way that we think is best. In this case, my sweet little patient was physically healed. Over the next two days she gradually awoke and was completely normal on day number three. We still don't know what was wrong with her. I asked her if I could share a picture of her with my friends on the blog, and she said, "Yes!"

This story makes me think of Mark 10:52 where Jesus heals a blind man then tells him, "Your faith has healed you." God wants to do marvelous things through us on this earth. My patient's family will always have a testimony about how their daughter was healed through God's power because they were willing to put their trust ONLY in Him. If disaster were to strike me or my family today, would I be ready to trust ONLY in God? I hope that I would demonstrate the same faith that this family showed. God is in charge, He knows what's best, and we can trust Him. Praise Him for His healing power.