When Science Has No Answer

We use the word miracle everyday in ways that have nothing to do with anything really miraculous. "It'll be a miracle if the computer works" or "The Red Sox won the game, what a miracle!". But what about real miracles, those times when God reaches in and changes the natural laws of the universe and does someting truly miraculous?

My little sister was born with chronic allergies. She couldn't eat any grains, dairy, citrus, and a number of fruits and vegetables. She was also deathly allergic to most medications. Her allergies were so severe that one day while I was cutting an orange, a tiny peice of pulp flew into her mouth and sent her into anaphlaxis (her throat started swelling and she couldn't breathe). At six years old, my sister was so malnourished that she probably only had a number of months left to live so as a last resort my parents took her to John's Hopkipns Hospital in Maryland. She was diagnosed as the 13th in the nation with a rare disease. In simple terms the disease casued her body to view many types of food as bacteria and fight against it. This was causing the anphlyxis. Also, since her immune system was always fighting fake diseases, when a real disease came her body was too tired to fight it, so she was always sick. For years we worked with doctors and eventually her diet expaned from potatoes, turkey and beef, to include corn, soy and a few fruits and vegetables. But her allergies to dairy, citrus, grain, and medication remained.

Throughout her life, many of our Christian friends had prayed for her healing. There had been marginal improvements, but nothing amazing, no miracles, she still lived on the brink of life and death day by day. Then one night when she was 13, we went to a prayer meeting where a good friend of my familiy, Mahesh Chavda, was teaching. He prayed for Hannah's disease to leave her body and for her to be healed. After that night, Hannah felt that she had really been healed so my parents took her to the doctors who had been working with her and they took bloodwork, tests, and all the stuff that doctors do. After the bloodwork came back the doctor, who did not in any way beleive in God, walked into the room. Usually calm and collected, he paced the room, sat down, stood up, unable to keep still. He then said that though he had no explaination, the results were clear, the bloodwork showed that her disease was gone. Though still advising caution, he said that we should try to re-introduce foods like grains and citrus and dairy back into her diet.

My parents anxiously watched Hannah take a bite of bread for the first time in years. She couldn't even remember what bread tasted like. All that day my mom and dad watched my sister like a hawk. If a tiny crumb could have killed her before, they worried what a whole bite could do if the bloodwork had been wrong. Hours passed...nothing happened. My sister had eaten a piece of bread for the first time in her memory!!! She was truly healed. We later asked the doctors if she could have simply grown out of her allergies. They replied that none of the other kids diagnosed with the same disease have outgrown it. And even if she could have outgrown it, it would not have happened so soon. The science had no answer, God had worked a miracle.