A Facebook exchange

My mother:

Charlie and i said a prayer of thanks giving for the Doctors and the hospital staff that pulled Norm out of this and more prayers to get him the rest of the way through this. Charlotte needs our "thoughts" also. The Lord put her in the right

Me:

I'm satisfied that you and Charlie have recognized that Norm would not have survived without the staff at the hospital. And because of modern science and the advancement of modern medicine he did not die. But that was not always true, and even today people die of this kind of injury because they don't get to the hospital in time. For example: Natasha Richardson died in March in a ski accident. Another example is Sonny Bono in 1998 died of head injuries in a ski accident.

A few minutes later another post.

My cousin:

I praise God for the doctors that had a hand in Norm's recovery. I don't believe that it would have happened without our prayers. I know from experience that the "critical hour" is very important in the outcome of these kind of injuries. As with Kim (another relative with a head injury), everything fell into place, and all the doctors and nursing staff where where they should have been to make this happen. That is God's hand!

Me:

I respectively disagree. There are many people who never make it to the hospital and die because of it. It happens to mothers of small children, old people, successful people, doctors who save lives, homeless people, and to ordinary people like me. It's random and tragic when people die because they didn't get to a hospital soon enough. It's also wonderful and inspiring when people do, that I will agree.

It's hard for me to process that people still think in this childish, backward, superstitious way. What do they think when other people have stories of family members who die because they don't get to a hospital soon enough? That God had a hand it it? That God saved their relative but didn't save the other person's because he wasn't important enough? How horrible is that? There's a huge disconnect to their way of thinking, as if they only think of their own situations and when death happens to others God isn't involved or that horrible excuse of "working in mysterious ways."

Most of my extended family is undereducated and their world is very, very small. They need a higher power looking out for them or else their little world becomes bigger and scarier. And heaven forbid if you rock their little world with a suggestion that their lives are random and meaningless. As I've mentioned before, I've been blocked by relatives and I've been disowned by some just because I disagree with them. My reply? "Whatever!"