
A religious radio station overpowered my satellite radio for just a moment today while I was driving in my car with my kids. Just long enough for me to hear some loud, passionate preacher announce that. Was it a sign? No. It was static.
It is sort of ironic that I heard those few words on the radio today. Network Administrator Friend was here with her family over the long weekend. All five of them. It was her, her husband, and their three boys. She was telling me about a book that she just read called Letter to a Christian Nation. She told me that it is a book about responding to ridiculous religious people who want to convince you that prayer works, that religion is the way, that prayer can move mountains. And one example she shared with me was about how no amputee has ever had her prayer answered. No matter how much she prayed. No matter how many people pray for her. It just doesn't happen. Does that mean that God hates amputees? Does that mean she didn't pray enough? Or that enough people weren't praying?
And what about sick kids? What about Preschooler in Chief? What did he do to deserve his heart defect? People all around the country were praying for him? Even if Father in Chief and I aren't religious, PIC has a lot of religious people in his family praying to a God that can't or won't heal our boy--or thousands of others like him. It doesn't happen.
Prayer does not fix people. Prayer does not heal people. The only thing prayer does is help the people praying feel better. It is a way for helpless people to feel like they are doing something. Prayer does not move mountains. And it makes me angry to have people out there preaching that praying is going to do something or heal someone. If you pray hard enough, God will hear you. God will help you. Prayer will move mountains.
I don't thank God that my son is alive. I thank the doctors and scientists and technology and research. I thank the thousands of others who came before us, whose children died as the doctors were learning how to help kids like my kid live a little bit longer and a little bit better. I thank the people who donate their blood so that my kid could get transfusions, and plasma, and albumen. I thank the families who donate their dying kids' organs so that other sick kids might live. Those are the people that need thanking.
So if you really want to move a mountain, you better get to work and you better be ready to sweat. Because no amount of prayer is going to make it happen.