Thursday, January 16, 2014

Medical Miracles Happen More Often Than You Think

By Marissa Velazquez


Medical miracles happen all the time to a number of fortunate people, but they can be considered a sign to for all of us. To those who believe in a beneficent deity, they are examples of the mercy of God and serve to strengthen faith. To others, they give hope when circumstances seem totally dark. Almost everyone knows someone who has experienced a supernatural event or knows someone who has.

If good things happen that can't be explained in natural terms, the event qualifies as a miracle. There have been accounts of such things all through history, and modern technology makes it easier to document them. In the old days, leprosy disappearing, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, and paralyzed people walking were proof of supernatural intervention. Nowadays, a CAT scan that shows a tumor which disappears without treatment is considered conclusive validation.

Every religion has its miraculous elements, although the approach may be different. Christians believe that Jesus performed many acts during His life that fall into this category. He fed five and later four thousand men (including many more women and children) with a small amount of donated food. He healed withered limbs, leprosy, blindness, and mental illness (demon possession), and even raised the dead.

Christianity and Islam believe that the power to supernaturally intervene in world affairs is in God's hands. Buddhism and many New Age belief systems think that man is himself able to do the supernatural through meditation or other means of communication with universal power. Christians and Muslims fast and pray, Buddhists meditate. Others try to find the power that they are sure dwells within themselves to influence or surmount natural laws.

Medical miracles are often disputed by those who do not believe. They cite the error potential of technology or say that misdiagnoses are common. However, both doctors and nurses often avow that things happen for which they have no other explanation than miraculous improvement. They believe in diagnostic machines enough to proceed with surgery and treatment, and are not prone to blame mechanical failure for the cases where disease disappears in a moment.

The news media love to bring incredible stories to us. A man survives a knife through his heart, another falls more than forty stories and recovers, a young child is under water for forty minutes but is revived with faculties intact, another is buried in sand for even longer but is OK despite being struck in the head by the backhoe digging for his body. Who can explain such things as rational, business as usual, or simple luck?

Explaining even the miraculous in natural terms satisfies some. They say that the body heals itself, that mind can triumph over matter, that people can rise above physical limitations when the need is great. They think people who call an unusual event a miracle are gullible. However, others see the hand of God in the wonders of the physical nature, in the harmony and order of the universe, and in surprises that defy natural laws.

We all can take comfort in the medical miracles that happen every day. No one likes having no recourse except pain and suffering when illness or injury strikes. When there may be a miracle in the future, there is always hope. And furthermore, to most of us, a miracle evokes help and hope that is out of this world.




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