Once I was asked, “do you blame God for all your illnesses (bipolar, anxiety, migraine, Parkinson’s and now dementia)?” Another time I was asked I was asked if the Parkinson’s with dementia made me angry. My quick and easy (for me) response was “no, not at all.” I don’t blame God for making me sick, I don’t think he made me sick, and as a matter of fact I think he’s equally sad as I am that I’m sick. I would even dare to say that He himself is angry that I’m sick.
Hold on.
Before I dig deeper here let me make sure you’re fully aware that in no way am I going to make an argument defending God, defending the idea that if God has the ability to heal me and does not he is somehow in the wrong and guilty of killing me, etc. Some of you are raising your hands, shaking your fists, and demanding that God be put on trial (rightfully so maybe). Others of you are standing up, shaking your fists, and are making a list of bullet points to absolutely prove why God is just in slowly killing me ’cause he’s teaching me a lesson (or disciplining me or what have you). Or some may argue I’m getting what I deserve. After all I fought years with alcohol and addiction and even years of anorexia. Some may argue I’m being punished for how I have treated my body as the Temple of God. Well let me say that I’m not going to please any of you because first off I don’t want to attempt to articulately figure all this out. Secondly I don’t believe that it’s my job to defend God. He can do that himself if he so desires. Quite more adequately than what I can if I say so myself. Thirdly, I don’t know if I’m able to make an adequate argument. Nor will I fall into that silly query of, “why do bad things happen to good people?”
So.
I don’t believe that God is responsible for my Parkinson’s and dementia. One of my most foundational beliefs, something that everything else builds off of is that God is good. The clearest
Parkinson’s and dementia are reminders that this world is utterly broken. Things have spiraled out of control and continue to do so. War, hatred, sickness, disease, addiction, abuse, lust, and greed (among so many other things) fight to control our world and transform it into what it was never intended to be. These things, as we experience them, remind us that things are not as they should be, things are not right! And in no way do I have space to believe that God is the culprit. Nope. Instead, my belief is that God is the source of all things good, of love, of hope, of peace, of beauty, of sex, of joy, of kindness, of generosity, of gentleness, and of fresh organic strawberries. Those things come from God because that is who God is–he is good. Parkinson’s with dementia is not one of those things. It does not come from God. Parkinson’s with dementia is in opposition to God–hell on earth, if you will. God hates Parkinson’s with dementia because it is in opposition to what he is all about: life.
So do I blame God for my Parkinson’s with dementia? Absolutely not.
The question, though, that we’re all obviously stuck asking is “But God, why don’t you heal me of it?” If he is able to heal me and does not isn’t he still equally responsible? Let me throw out some random thoughts here. This isn’t an attempt to defend things fully, but rather a random collection of my own musings about this question that obviously plagues me from time to time…
At some point every single person is going to not be healed. What I mean is that even if I get healed now, at some point I won’t be…’cause at some point I’m going to be deader than dead. Whether it’s now or later it’s gonna happen. Healing is not the ultimate Band-Aid, it’s only temporary.
