Once when I was young, I got very sick.  My entire body was covered in this red sandpaper rash, my throat was killing me, and I was running a fever.  My parents took me to our family doctor and he pronounced that I had scarlet fever.  I began to cry because in my favorite computer game—the Oregon Trail—anyone who had scarlet fever (or dysentery) died in a turn or two.  Our doctor calmly reassured me that medicine has come a long way since the 1800s and that I was going to be just fine.  Though I missed a week of school, the antibiotics did the trick and I was soon healed.

Recovering from Covid made me think about that scarlet fever infection.  I am happy to report that I tested negative for Covid on Tuesday (2/22/22 ended up being a good day for me!) and I will be back in the pulpit on Sunday.  I’m still mostly without my senses of taste and smell and dealing with fatigue, but all in all I am better.  The truth is that after both bouts of illness, I am amazed by the miracle of medicine.  The fact that antibiotics can cure the toxin of scarlet fever or that vaccines can lessen the severity of the coronavirus, this is miraculous!  How far we have come in our understanding of the human body, diseases, and cures for diseases, this is miraculous!  

I have often lamented when some folks seem to believe that faith and science cannot coexist.  You either have faith or are scientifically minded, as if they are mutually exclusive.  That is just not true.  As we often like to say in the United Church of Christ, our faith may be 2,000 years old, but our thinking is not.  Thank God, and thank God for science.  See you in church on Sunday.

Love,
Pastor Lauren

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Thursday Thoughts 2/24/22