>>>“…which we all love.”
… let’s not get crazy.
Please send her my best. I’d hate for her to leave the blog-community without first having the opportunity to change her mind about oh-so-many topics.

Let us hope for a full and speedy recovery.

which we all love.
Ok, now you are baiting us, dear. See how quickly, folks? This stuff is contagious.
I’m glad that Boris cleared up something on the previous post … I was beginning to wonder if, through this illness, the atheists who dislike michele so much would be tempted to believe in a God who sets things right. I’m actually relieved that they don’t in this way … because it is superstition.
As is this from John Piper. God help us.
Get better, michele.

More prayers on the way.

That’s a wonderful post by John Piper. It’s a joy to see people of your background realizing that God is greater than they can define, however slowly they are realizing this. Now if you rock-hard Reformed Christians could realize God didn’t make six billion puppets….

Over a quarter of a century ago, my new bride and I started our married life on a mission. Members of one of the smaller Presbyterian denominations, we took off to Southeast Asia to help set up a library and a school. We did not feel called to missionaries, but we did feel called to go this smaller, urban area to do our work in conjunction with the local churches of our denomination. It was place that at the time was majority Muslim but accommodating of Christians. We had saved, and we had a few thousand dollars wedding money, and we did not get support directly from any church.
Three months into our marriage, we were thrilled to think Nora, my wife, might be pregnant. But a few weeks later we horrified to learn she apparently had ovarian cancer.
We got to the nation’s capital, where there was state of the art diagnostic equipment. We paid for a diagnosis to confirm the worst. They didn’t have chemo, but they offered radiation therapy.
It turned out to be whole-body radiation therapy. Nora was burned from head to toe, and to this day I think that a second treatment would have killed her right then and there.
We could not return to the States, so we went back to our work. That was where the real nightmare began.
We never dreamed that when we went to the local post office to get the stamps on our letters canceled (you had to wait in line and do that), that somebody would be taking down the names for their own purposes. Our friends and family back home were getting deluged with sob stories and requests for funds. And when they didn’t get their funds, they send second and third letters denouncing us.
We were not clergy, so our denomination told us we were on our own. For the next 10 months, we moved from a home that at least had indoor plumbing to a hut, and I spent my last dollar on Nora’s last request for a meal, an apple. There was infection, there was ascites, there as blistering, she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t eat, she died two days before Christmas 1983.
All that time our church gave us nothing. My parents sent us $200, once. Her parents, nothing. I buried her there, and the way I got home, although I suppose I could have gone to the Consulate, was I had graduated from college recently enough that I was offered a credit card. I got back to California three weeks after I buried Nora.
And not one word of condolence from my church. Nothing.
So why would I be so angry with Michelle?
Michelle is the child of military. What does that get you, Champus, PX, all on the taxpayer dime? It’s fine for military to get all the government freebies, but for some other Nora with ovarian cancer, nothing.
Michelle hates national healthcare. Michelle is getting her surgery and her chemo and her pain medication. Nora got nothing. Michelle does not want some other Nora to have the chance even to buy her way into care.
Michelle is angry at God for giving her brother and herself cancer. My Nora did complain occasionally, but she was never angry at God.
And I am not angry at God now. I am angry at those evil creeps who stole addresses and cut us off from our friends and family. I am angry at a system that could only provide treatment that is worse than cancer. But I am not angry at God.
I am angry at Michelle. She’s a spoiled brat turned into a greedy, selfish naysayer who would use her little influence to make sure the only people who have options are her. And that is what I detest about Michelle.
And more than any of you, I can tell you, cancer had the capacity to help her grow, and we shall see if it is not a blessing.
I am not interested in any of your comments or prayers. I have found Reformed Christians to be rear end of the body of Christ, and reading this blog is a lot like spiritual proctology. This is my last comment in this blog.

Gene, my heart goes out to you. That must have been a horrendous experience. To lose your wife to cancer is one thing, but to lose your wife to cancer and not to have a way to care for her and getting a kick in the pants from your church at the same time, that is truly horrendous.
I’m not a Reformed Christian, or any other kind of Christian, so I can’t speak to why they behave the way they do. (I used to be. Then I had some experiences like yours.) I am just so sorry you had this awful experience. Thank the Deity Michelle will not.

Sarah, your Mom should relax for as long as she can to get her strength back. Any surgery takes awhile to recover from.
Gene, the experience you had was horrible. The fact that no one helped you from the church was also horrible. I can understand your feelings towards this branch of Christianity. The best to you.

So Gene gets his support from a Presbyterian turned atheist (I would be a Christian except for Christians) and a pagan. Compassionate group, Reformed Christians. Not.

Christians only spend money on and come to the aid of people they think they can indoctrinate and pedophile priests. They only feed the hungry as long s they think they can indoctrinate them.

I am an ex-feminist and atheist. I also have had bad experiences with the church – one of my best friends is a Cambodian missionary whose wife is black and has had a lot of problems with some Christians, but not all of them are horrible. Brian whose wife has faced considerable prejudice in Cambodia, who has pleaded with churches here to care about the downtrodden, is still a Christian. I know priests who really love God. I think our media paints Christians as a cross between Paul Shanley and Osama Bin Laden in part to justify morality that sounds like a cross between Hitler, Stalin and Caligula – and I think the sexual revolution is the cause for sexual crimes of all sorts…As someone who nearly died on the street, people are not the ones to look to…I took a stand to help the lower end of the spectrum and to protest our jobs being sent overseas – a lot of the church does not see eye to eye with me, but I don’t throw out my faith with ignorant or selfish people….I sat with a brain injury for five years up in Boston no one did anything for me, and I realize I could have died (when I lived in North Carolina I had wonderful friends who would do anything for me, most of whom were Christians). Jesus helped countless people who ended up turning on Him in His Hour of need.
I recently met a girl – a new hairdresser, sweet, unbitter kid, who had been beaten up very badly in her Bronx neighborhood. I asked her how she could not be bitter or how she moved on without being frightened, and she just did.

Michele, many prayers for your speedy recovery.

I know I said I wouldn’t comment any more. But Boris, that’s not right. When I was a Christian, I really didn’t care whether I made converts or not. My wife and I did go for the adventure, but we mostly did what we did for the joy of doing it. Naturally, the church didn’t help us. But every Christian at all times isn’t a total jerk. You just aren’t likely to find those who aren’t anywhere the blog owner hangs out, I would think. Maybe to be Christlike you need to be an atheist. The Spaghetti Monster knows Christians aren’t.

And my sympathies for your experiences, Your Name. Perhaps the problem is the Northeast is populated by assholes. Isn’t Boston where they have to put up street signs telling people to yield to ambulances? Philadelphia must be similar. But I am glad you made it.

Your assumption,Gene, that the Norteast is populated by A holes is totally wrong. I live in the Northeast and have not found that to be true at any time!

I’m prepared to stick up for the Northeast, too! It is what you make of it, Bud. (And I’m still broken up over what Gene shared.)

my hindu and buddhist friends have a word – karma. then, christians have “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” take your time to heal, michele, and spend that time wisely… time for introspection, perhaps.
gene, sorry to hear of your loss and your pain.