Abstract
Acritically ill 69-year-old wife and mother was dying despite all available intensive care. Even as her clinical condition rapidly worsened and death was felt to be imminent, her husband, a Pentecostal pastor, and their children, rejected the medical team's grim prognosis. Instead, they expressed their belief that God would miraculously heal her, and this healing depended on their faith. As a child raised in a similar religious tradition, I was well taught that God would act on our behalf “according to your faith.” 1 ,Matt. 9:29
The morning of her death, as the patient's youngest son stood alone, trembling and weeping at her bedside, someone by speakerphone, not there to witness the signs of impending death, commanded relentlessly and aggressively that he “speak the word of faith.” The patient's nurse reported hearing a voice on speakerphone, presumably that of an older brother, chastising the patient's son for failing to hold faith for his mother, who had always held faith for him.
As monitors frantically announced the rapid waning and sudden cessation of physiological evidence of life, the critical care team rushed in to attempt resuscitation. Even as resuscitative efforts were ongoing, the family tried desperately to hold to their faith. The patient's husband and sons sat frozen in disorienting fear and anticipatory grief in a room away from the intense efforts to reclaim the patient from death. The patient's daughters stood weeping just outside the glass windows and door of the room where their mother had only moments before been alive. One daughter seemed torn and distressed and repeatedly said, “I don't want to see my mother suffer but I can't let her go.” Her older sister tearfully said she had “gotten a word” from God. It was time to let go. No one in the devastated heartbroken family could bear to hear what this daughter felt was a divine word.
The medical team finally terminated their futile efforts to resuscitate. The patient died, and it was not a gentle death. The family was inconsolable.
What troubled me most was that this devout and loving family felt that the patient's death resulted from their failure to engender the faith required to manifest a miracle. It was inconceivable to me that a compassionate God observed their suffering and chose to deny their plea for healing because they failed to muster the requisite degree of faith.
A young chaplain involved in the patient's care held a more nuanced understanding of faith. He disappointedly said that he wished he had known how to suggest to the family, “Perhaps surrendering her to God is also a full expression of faith.”
Faith, according to physicist Alan Lightman, “is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand,” “to disregard scientific evidence.” 2 ,p51 I believe that miraculous healings occur. And yet I never felt that this terminally and irreversibly ill mother would be miraculously healed. I never “disregarded the scientific evidence” of her impending death. Nevertheless, I believe that in ways that I do not fully understand, many families devastated by tragedy and loss, many distressed health care teams frantically providing care that offers almost no hope of healing, and many who bear compassionate witness to their suffering, will receive some measure of solace and restoration.
Months after the death of his wife, I spoke to the pastor. He described his deep persistent aching grief. He expressed concern for his youngest son, who seemed “in a depressive state,” often going to his mother's gravesite alone, sitting with her, and weeping. I gently inquired about the pastor's understanding of faith. The pastor no longer seemed to view his wife's death as a failure of faith. “No man knows the mind of God,” he said. “There is a purpose in everything God allows, even when we do not understand it. And I am still holding on to faith.”
Having been denied the miracle for which he had hoped and prayed, in the face of unmooring grief, and with his understanding of faith transformed, this grieving husband and father remained deeply committed to his religious and spiritual beliefs. He continued to hold deeply to his faith.
