Life with My Dad in The ICU: Is God in Control?

Today I sat by my father’s hospital bed in the ICU.  Look at those letters I-C-U.  They are damn ugly aren’t they?  Seriously, even if they didn’t stand for “Intensive Care Unit” they would still scream of something being wrong.  Sorry I digressed so horribly right from the beginning.  So I was sitting there looking at this man that I love with all of my heart, and he has tubes going in and out of his bruised and tired body.  The nurses came in and opened the curtains, and it just seemed fitting that it was cloudy, and one of the coldest days in history.

I wasn’t alone on the ICU floor.  There were others sitting by bedsides looking at their loved ones as well.  And no one says it, but we know the ICU is one of heaven’s waiting rooms, and we are praying that God doesn’t choose to call out the name of the one we love.  Yes almost everyone prays in the ICU and they want one thing…they want a miracle.

A young man who tested the speed of his motorcycle heard his name called while I was there in heaven’s waiting room, but not the teenage girl that accompanied him on the rambunctious ride…she got her miracle.  In fact, that is what her precious mother said to me…she said, “It’s a miracle!”  Later on in the evening as I turned the corner near another ICU unit I heard the screams of two teenage girls.  I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I kept hearing the word “daddy.”  The family’s pastor arrived to pray with them and then he went to pray with their daddy.  And it wasn’t long until I heard a lady say, “They lost him.”  Their daddy’s name had been called.  Then I met a sweet little old lady who let me know her hubby had gotten his miracle.  “Praise the Lord” she said as they opened the doors to allow her to go back in to sit by his side.  Yes the ICU is a place of prayer.  It is a place where some claim God heard them and granted them a miracle and others…well they just feel like they got screwed.

You may be wondering if I pray, and the answer is yes, but not in the same way that I did at one time.  Now my prayers feel more like throwing a coin into a wishing well or a slot machine.  I don’t think it will change anything or that I will hit the jackpot, but I can’t resist reaching into my heart and dropping in a prayer.  And I will often ask others to pray on my behalf, because my faith in a heavenly process is weak.

It isn’t that I’m angry with God or doubting His process for who gets a miracle.  Honestly, I just simply think there may not be a process in place.  And while that once caused me to get depressed and very pissed off at God…it now brings me peace and comfort.  Yes you read that correctly.  Now that I don’t think God is in complete control I don’t hold Him responsible for all the horrible shit that hits the fan.  Please don’t be offended but I just don’t believe that God looks down into an ICU and chooses who gets to keep the love of their life and who doesn’t.

I realize that this type of thinking makes many of my Christian friends more than a little upset with me.  They don’t understand how that I can possibly believe that God is not all powerful, but I can live with that because I know that God is upset with me.  The problem with most Christians today is they seem to think God gets angry with anyone that doesn’t think He is the controller of the universe.  If God is the controller of the universe then He probably looks at me and says, “What a dumb ass, but I love him anyway.”  And If He is in complete control then I would say to Him, “Can we have a very long talk when I get to meet you?”  Because if He is steering this ship He is making the captain of the Titanic look like Captain Stubing!

Now I didn’t fall out of the back of the fundamentalist truck yesterday so I know what some of you may say about that last paragraph.  Some may say that the world is a mess because Eve listened to that damn snake in the garden, and now we live in a fallen world. You may believe we are in this diseased filled world with suffering and tragedies all around us because of our sin, and that the blame can’t be placed on God.  Well let’s say that I built a car for you, and while you were driving down the road the wheels fell off and caused you to crash.  At that point would you say that the crash was your fault, because you chose to drive the car?  Would you say that we just live in a fallen world where no one’s perfect and then let me off the hook?  No, you would hire a good lawyer, and blame the crash on me because I was the car’s creator.

I love our beautiful world, but if God is the all powerful creator then He has to be responsible for the “wheels falling off.”  If He is not the all powerful creator then we can quit being upset with Him, and slap a bumper sticker on life that says, “Shit Happens.”  And that is really what I think it all comes down too.  Shit happens and we have to do our best to deal with it.  Our world is far from perfect, but we have to learn to accept the fact that suffering and pain are part of it.  The day will come where each of us will begin to suffer in some form or another, and so we must make the most of each day we have between now and then.  Yes God is good and God is great, but we can’t blame Him when our name or the name of those we love is called.

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