Chapter 15: Myth—God Heals Everyone

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Myth—God Heals Everyone

Here is some startling medical truth. If you have good insurance and you are unlucky enough to get a feeding tube placed in your comatose or

vegetative state body, you are likely to remain that way until the insurance runs out of money, the family runs out of money or the state refuses to pay. Especially if a loved one thinks he or she is applying a standard of true love.

Verily I say to you that true love can place a comatose or vegetative state loved one in the hands of God after reasonable medical care has been exhausted. If you choose artificial means for keeping their body alive, you do so for yourself not for them. It would be different if they were cognitive

and gave those medical instructions, but then it wouldn’t be your decision. Many quadriplegics have lived a meaningful life as a result of their own cognitive choices; Christopher Reeves is one example. However, it is their own spirit-soul that is directing their physically impaired life choices. God certainly may have a role in helping them make meaningful decisions.

“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” Romans 12:9

Take a deep breath and put yourself into the body of your comatose or vegetative state loved one. Ask yourself how long it would be reasonable to keep yourself in that state. What would godly love do? If you think that love would be “long suffering” in such instance, you are misinterpreting the

Bible. Keeping someone artificially going is simply cruel. It didn’t take Jackie and I long to realize we needed to place her Aunt Bernice into God’s loving hands. The condition was beyond our ability to understand and also beyond the medical systems ability to cure. Bernice’s life belonged in the

category of “I can’t handle it Lord.” Putting her into God’s hands with prayer lets Him make the decision about healing, life and death. It is no more complicated than simply yielding over to God what is beyond us.

When the Living Will became available in Minnesota, I completed one and gave a copy to the clinics I used. In that Living Will, I have said that it is okay to use machines on me for seven days if I am unable to speak for myself. After seven days, I have asked that the machines be taken off of

my body and that I be left in the arms of the God that I trust. Should God desire me to stay on this earth, I know that He can perform the healing that