Fuel I have no reason to doubt that you did have an experience very much like (perhaps exactly) like you have described here.
It is quite common in young people to experience sudden and severe hives as a result of an allergy (due to meds., food, insect, etc.) which has never been diagnosed. They often appear suddenly and can go away just as quickly.
Perhaps this was what you experienced and because of your families devout religious beliefs it was naturally seen as a miracle?
FYI Fuel When I was eight years old. I was in my neighbor’s front yard playing and I heard a noise above me. I looked up in the trees and there sat a “friend” of mine. He had a slingshot in his hand and it was loaded. He shot me and hit me in the right eye. The chinaberry busted my eyeball to the exent that it was open and full of blood.
Obviously the hospital was my first stop, no time for any BS. The doctors said that I would be blind as a result of the accident. The fluid from my optic nerve was leaking and they could not stop it. I was immediately setup to have a transplant, in hopes of retaining my vision.
Mom has blue eyes like me, she told them to take one of hers and to give it to me. (pretty tough, so far huh?) Dad got there as soon as he heard. No BS just go!
Anyway, it had been decided that I could wait a few days as long as they kept both of my eyes taped shut and wrapped tight. I could not see anything by then, so no harm done I guess. and besides we were waiting on some “expert” to get here in a few days.
Meantime…dad’s sister showed up with her “Assembly of GOD” bunch and did a prayer vigil for those days.
I forget exactly what the cause was but dad got pissed at everyone it seemed. The doctors especially…I went home and when the bandages were removed I could see. My eyes were perfect I can still see 20/20 if not better.
I have had my eyes injured a few times since then over the years BUT I still have perfect vision.
NOW I’m not claiming miracle here…but if I didn’t know that a persons eyes are one of the most successful regenerators that our body possesses. I would probably “see” it that way. 
t-keela, I think your proposition is totally poosible, even probable since I just learned of the shingles/hives thing.
Actually, the conversation that I just had with my parents about 3 days ago ,which sparked this thread, started with me doubting my mom and dad for their claims. Every year or two since the the event, I question them again and again. “How long was I lying there?”. “Exactly where were the blisters?”. And so on. My mom has never changed her story as long as I can remember. But, I sort of hurt my mom when I asked here a couple days ago if it was possible that she hallucinated it. She assured me she was being totally honest with herself and me.
The only draw back of this concession of it being a quick case of the hives: Am I neglecting God’s possible healing by conceding this? In order to make sure I don’t ever call an act of God coincidence, I had better leave it open as an act of God in my own mind!
That’s totally understandable Fuel I would never intentionally say anything that I feel would hurt my parents or anyone else for that matter. You have your faith, that’s great, test it, study, look for other possibilities. They have theirs as well. If they lead a good life and don’t have a problem with their beliefs why cause them to doubt what gives them comfort and assists them in their daily lives.
Why cause needless pain/suffering/torment…ego and selfishness perhaps. There is too much of this in the world as is. Don’t add your own (we all have it, me too).
It is definitely possible that if God (beg the question) does work “miracles” that HE would do so through means that can be scientifically explained if not fully understood. Perhaps that is one reason people were more apt to claim something as a miracle than they are now.
That same circumstance can be used to explaim my own scenario, don’t ya think? I know some who have claimed it to have been a miracle and that is also why my eyes are still perfect today. Despite at least three other injuries since the one I told you about. They claim the"miracle" is self-evident because my eyes were healed and they have remained healed despite subsequent injuries.
Peace
Fuel
How old are you now? I ask because the medication I took when I was twelve (1976) and the meds someone who is say 18 took when they were twelve (1997) would be very different. What year was it when you were 12?
But I agree that the allergy reaction sounds very probable. It may not have even been an reaction to your medication. Just something you encountered.
I will be 23 in January.
The most rational explanation is hives that my immune system defeated.
However, there is an extra extension of my opinion on this that will always say that this was a miracle of God in one way or another. The fact that this happened to me while my mom gave so much faith then (and still is one of the most devoted Christians I know), I must believe to some extent that God had a hand in this. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t support the miracle theory in some manner. I emotionally thank God for it all the time, even if I my rational mind doesn’t let me believe that it was a miracle.
Fuel, witnessing is supposed to be done in Great Debates, even if you add the condition that everything you say must be taken at face value.
Moving this to Great Debates.
So God didn’t even heal you all of the way? Some miracle.
Also, even if I were to concede that it was your mother’s prayer that triggered your rapid recovery… was it the first time that she had prayed for you to get better? Or was it the 10,000th? If the latter, then God is 1/10000. That’s not a batting average I’d put my utmost faith in.
Fuel, I’m going to have to echo Bricker and lovelyluka. On the presumption that your account is completely accurate and without any confabulation, what happened to you is either a miracle or an exceedingly unlikely coincidence.
But you honestly cannot rule out a certain amount of confabulation. If you’re not aware of the term, it refers to the memory’s ability to fill in details in a scene you do not actually remember, and to “remember” things that conform to what you would like to believe happened. E.g., she, a woman of strong faith prayed over you. Nothing hapopened, then. A couple of hours later, the blisters started to heal. She “knows” that it happened in answer to her prayer – “knows” in quotes because it’s not verifiable fact but the certitude of faith that it was in answer to her prayer. As she recalls the incident later, the time span recedes until it’s the dramatic story of instantaneous answer to prayer. Please take due note that this is in no way maligning your mother’s truthfulness – it’s hypothecating she might have been a victim of a common phenomenon in reference to memory. There’s a classic scenario from a psychology experiment involving showing a group of subjects a filmclip of a fender-bender accident out in the country. They are then asked a series of questions about the accident, immediately after viewing the filmclip and then some days later. One question is “Did the white car go past the barn before or after the accident?” or something quite similar involving a white car – the problem being that there is no white car in the filmclip. But the power of suggestion is such that many of the subjects confidently asserted that they saw the white car go by after (or before) the accident. In my own life, one of my earliest memories is sitting in our back yard watching my aunt bathe our dogs, Gypsy and Chubby, both of whom died before I was two. I can envision the scene clearly. But I’ve seen photographs of those two dogs, and the dogs I remember – and see clearly in that memory – both resemble her next dog, Jinx, more than the dogs I would have seen her bathing. My memory “edited” the picture to reflect the dog she had during most of my childhood, not the two of which that’s my only memory.
So with no intent to impugn your veracity or that of your family, it’s extremely wise to get a photographic account, a written-at-the-time account, or that of an unbiased third party when documenting dramatic events, especially those alleged to be miraculous, because memory can and does play tricks. You (generically, not Fuel, Actuary, and Mrs. A. in particular) remember what you want to believe happened.
With that cautionary note, let’s take your account at face value. Some questions arise:
Your mother refuted the authority of Satan, and mentioned the tape. Do you, or does she, connect your illness to a Satanic attack of some sort? To what extent did that refutation connect to the healing, in your estimation? Do you think that Satan is responsible for no, a few, some, most, or all illnesses?
Do you credit your immediate healing to an aspect of the miracle? Do you think you would have suffered longer, and/or been scarred, if God had not worked the miracle?
As noted above, God sometimes heals in answer to prayer – and sometimes not. Do you have any clue why He chose to heal you in particular? (Be honest – I’m more certain of what He was up to in saving me from my heart attack than I am of why Germany lost World War I.)
Isabelle, one quick comment. Your call to humility is laudable – but God never forbade asking questions with an effort to know better His will. And the topmost question of anyone who believes facing their own or a loved one’s serious illness is why? To tell a person grieving over a death that they must not question God’s will in taking that loved one is callous in the extreme – and a violation of Christ’s second most important commandment. Do think that through; it will only improve your ministry.
Valid questions, and ones that my late pastor was willing to address instead of dodge.
“I don’t know. It happens sometimes, and I don’t pretend to be able to read God’s mind. I’m supposed to pray for it, so I will.”
If I am given a situation with a set of occurences, I don’t care who tells me it happened, I’m going to ask for clarification and be dubious if this person is presenting it as a miracle. SOP for me, and evidently for others. If this is too personal a matter for you to post length explanations, or if you are unable to provide such (either yourself or a relative doing so on your behalf), then this was not a good idea for a thread to start.
There is a tendency among many people (and this is limited to no faith or geophysical/ethnic/other definable area) that, when something is sufficiently unexplainable, to call it magic/a miracle/impossible/etc. I think that is what has happened here. Meanwhile let us examine a few key facts:
Is it possible to have the diagnosis confirmed now, or are we left with only your (and your mother’s) nonmedical opinion and the diagnosis of a doctor over the phone concerning something diagnosed based on appearance?
This may be my own personal experience bias here, but I have been present for an exorcism, which sounds similar to what your mother believes was necessary at that moment. I have also been present for a house being cleansed of Satan. It may be a difference in denomination (the exorcism was led by Baptists and the house cleansing by a Catholic woman), but the words being used in both scenarios (though unfortunately I am unable to specifically recall them. I’ll email my father and see if he can forward the instructions for the house cleansing to me, though I doubt he still has it) was different enough that I wonder to what extent your mother believed it was the work of Satan because of what she happened to be reading. I’m not sure how clearly I can make this point, and I may be trying to make something out of nothing here.
Shock involved. From your OP:
It does not sound as if the events unfolded in a way that would enable her to recall them in an unbiased way. The entire thing is shaped, from my POV, so that the natural inclination is for both of you to believe it was a miracle because of what can (and is, by some) alternately be seen as a series of coincidences.
A fortunate turn of events, to be sure. A miracle? I don’t think there’s enough evidence to say that.
Fuel
I could listen to your story, and hear your mother’s miracle. I could praise God for the love he showed her. I could join with her in her joy at the love of the Lord.
But you have taken her miracle, and turned it into an electronic side show for your own evangelistic political bonus. Kind of like taking out a sacramental vestment, and rolling in the gutter with it, to show what a holy man you are.
Stop it.
This was your mother’s miracle. Don’t piss in it. All you got out of it was a week or so of comfort, and a tendency to portray yourself as somehow more special than someone else.
Go apologize to you mother.
Tris
As for your first sentence, I suggest you read more thoroughly.
As for your second paragraph, I have not had a serious illness since then, so… ok. I acknowledge your post and thank you for your input.
Fuel, let me ask another question: if in the weeks before your illness, your Mom had been praying hard and having the importance of prayer impressed upon her, shouldn’t you have not gotten sick in the first place? Yeah, less of a miracle, but much more useful if you ask me.
Really? And here I thought the existence of god, let alone the efficacy of prayer, had never been scientifically proven. Are you really interested in anyone else’s take here?
**
I cannot stress to you how many times this story has been told from her and my dad to me and others. Like I said somewhere in this post, every year or so this story comes up again, ever since the event. There has been VERY LITTLE gap between story tellings. I have told a good deal of people over the years about this. I have told this story many many times and so has she. I would venture to say that any human accounting at this emotional point tends to be at least somewhat slurred, but this is not something that my parents take lightly. They remember the details… a significant portion of their faith rests on it. Could my mom be remembering what she wishes happened? I doubt it. She swore to God that she is not streching the truth at all, something I never thought my mom would do!
**
Did you see that my dad saw my blisters and then they were gone an hour later when he returned from his meeting? This is a second testimony, it’s not all on Mom! (Actually, I just spoke with my dad and he said it was a church meeting in a prayer room and that room did not have a phone and this was before cell phones. Just thought I was add this as some were wondering about this)
**
Well, that’s the type of question I didn’t want to invade this post, but now that’s it’s in GD: I interpret the Bible as saying that Satan is indeed active in our lives, especially believers’ lives. To even try and quantify how often Satan inflicts illness is fruitless. I think it’s a daily thing that Satan interrogates believers, through a headache or a fender-bender on the way to work. But to speak of how Satan works is non-foundational. Juts to say that Satan is at work is enough for me. If you ask my mom, she thinks Satan makes us sick a lot, but that’s her opinion. I value her opinion strongly, because she gets up at 6:30 every morning and reads the Bible for hours… she knows the Word. But I am more resistant to claim such a thing. I know Satan would love to annoy my mom, and a great way to do it is to make her or her son ill, so her opinion is not outlandish.
**
Do I think that if the sickness had run it’s course, I would have been worse off? Certainly.
I already addressed my opinion on what the source of this event was.
**
I have a theory on why this happened when it did, how it did ,and in the emotional manner it did…
You noticed I mentioned how my mom was just getting into prayer more deeply? I should add that this was a step forward in her relationship with Christ. If there was ever a time when she needed this type of faith-supporting event, it was then. This event was timely in that it set the stage for her to become a “prayer-warrior” ever since. She is known as the prayer lady at church, and maybe it’s because this one event sparked a fire under her.
Basically, what I am saying is that this event had lasting positive effects on all of us. Health-wise and spiritual-wise. And us being different people becuase of this event probably changed some of the lives we have come into contact with since then, in the form of witnessing and prayer. This would be why.
I posted this here for one reason: To see how you people react to it. I wanted your opinions. Thank you for yours.
**
Not if it would have produced more of a lasting positive effect on us if I did get sick and then healed.
I already addressed this mistake of mine. I apologized for this here: " It’s pretty obvious here that I don’t have any practice or experience narrating. I am sorry for creating this confusion. I should have been in a more technical, factual mindset while writing the OP, but I was dumb and put in one or two of these types of opinionated statements. Sorry. Let’s amend the OP to say what I have said in my 2nd and 3rd posts."
Exactly how much did your mother pray at all other times during the two month period? Did she pray at all prior to the hives?
To what end? Surely you would expect beforehand that many would be skeptical. So how does knowing that, surprise!, many are skeptical affect you? Clearly you have no intention of revising your own interpretation of the event, nor should you reasonably expect to sway anyone else to intepreting it as you do. Either you (general) already believe in miracles, or you don’t.
And who are “you people”?
Why do you think this matters? I will get back to you on that, but only after you get back to me.
If she did pray a lot for 2 weeks (not months) to no avail, maybe God was teaching her patience and persistance, and subsequently awarded her for it. If she did not pray much for the 2 weeks, maybe God was waiting for her to give the faith to lay her hands on me and pray the words she knows God wanted to hear.
Either way, it doesn’t matter, right?