I'm not a religious person or a believer in God

Let me begin this thread by saying that I have been an atheist since I was about 15 (23 now)

Now my mother who is 43 and a relatively healthy woman (until now) was rushed into the ER last night and they detected a mass in the head of her pancreas. The Doctor informed us that masses that are detected in the pancreas turn out to be malignant cancers about 80% of the time.

My Mother is a devout Christian and a believer in God as well as almost my entire family except me. Last night a pastor from her church was in the ER room with her and the rest of our family and they decided to do a prayer session in the room. I didn't want to come off as rude person so I obliged to hold hands with all of the people in the room, and as the priest was reading a scripture from his bible I began to feel very weak and light headed.

As the priest continued to read the scripture the weaker and the worst I felt, I seriously thought I was going to pass out. My skin began to feel really cold and I just had to sit down because I felt really bad. As soon as the prayer was over I began to feel better. Ever since last night when it happened, I've been trying to brush this off as just a symptom from the shock that I got from learning that my Mother might have pancreatic cancer. But I'm really not sure.....

That's the first time I have ever felt that way and I haven't felt that way since. I really don't want to sound foolish but could this have been some kind of message? From someone....?

reply to post by muse7


Why do you think the answers you seek are going to be found here?

You know the answer.

reply to post by sconner755


I'm interested to hear if other people here have had an experience similar to mine.

Part of me wants to brush this off as just a symptom of shock and another part of me thinks this is a message from someone....

reply to post by muse7


I'm a believer. Always have been. Never won't be. I've never heard anything quite like you're describing. It seems odd. Do you honestly love your mother ? And where is Dad ?

reply to post by muse7

What scripture was the priest reading exactly? And my best wishes for your mother... my dad just had a malignant melanoma removed so I can sympathize...

First off i would like to say im sorry to hear about your mom. I know how hard it is to get such bad news when it comes to a loved one, especially your mama. Ive been there My take on your experience comes from a non denominational christian perspective. We r surrounded by spiritual beings on a daily basis: demons and angels. Angels keep watch, and intervene when told to by GOD, demons however pretty much do what they please, which is anything to destract you away from God. I believe thats what you experienced. Destraction from the Word of God. Just my thoughts. I will pray for your mama's healing.

Originally posted by muse7
As the priest continued to read the scripture the weaker and the worst I felt, I seriously thought I was going to pass out. My skin began to feel really cold and I just had to sit down because I felt really bad.

For this to be attributed to the prayer, you'd first have to ask yourself if this is the normal reaction that people have to prayer.
What if you'd felt euphoric?
What if you'd felt "connected to the universe"?
What if you'd completely blacked out?

Neither the priest, nor your mother would have EVER stated that any of the examples, nor the one you provide, would be the specific effects of prayer (as a priori statement in advance of the prayer).... so maybe you shouldnt either.*





* having said that, religious people always have the wishy washy get out clause of anything goes, and anything that happens at all is evidence.
Did X, felt Y, therefore X causes Y.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by muse7

 

I'm a believer. Always have been. Never won't be. I've never heard anything quite like you're describing. It seems odd. Do you honestly love your mother ? And where is Dad ?

edit on 8-1-2013 by randyvs because: (no reason given)

Yes I honestly do love my mother dearly. My dad was in a business trip and he'll be back in town sometime this morning.

It was ODD, I've never felt that way before and I haven't felt that sick ever since, as soon as the priest stopped I began to feel better. I don't know what to make of it

Originally posted by Thought Provoker
reply to post by muse7

 

What scripture was the priest reading exactly? And my best wishes for your mother... my dad just had a malignant melanoma removed so I can sympathize...

Thank you for your well wishes.

I don't really know which scripture it was, since like I said I have never been religious.

This is the 3rd person in my immediate family to get this disease so it sucks :/

reply to post by muse7

I was just wondering if what he was saying had any bearing on it. The actual words might be vital in an attempt to understand what happened to you. (That or you're malnourished; I passed out a couple of days ago from not eating enough... ) Can't remember any of his words?

reply to post by muse7


Seek your answers in yourself my brother, reach your own conclusions.

All you will get here is people clamoring to propagate their own propaganda.

Just look for yourself

Does it make sense to you?

Does it make you feel better or worse?

reply to post by muse7

First things first. My best wishes to your mother. May she recover, and have much life left to enjoy.

Never let peer pressure make you participate in holding hands for a group prayer. Especially when you are already emotionally taxed, and physically worn down. You open yourself up to things you don't want. There's much I could say here, but I'll just say this. What happened to you had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with others draining you of your energy, and wearing you down further emotionally.

reply to post by muse7


I'm an atheist also and I had a similar situation when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. My mother is Christian as is all of my family. The prayer thing makes me uncomfortable and with the stress of that combined with my mothers illness caused me to have an anxiety attack, light headed, dizzy, etc etc. After that I had few others. Just my experience, may be related.

reply to post by muse7


A logical answer from what i think what happened was...

You were an Atheist, you have been thru countless religious lectures and probably researched on their contradiction, and ultimately made a choice of not believing.

Now, when someone close to us get sick, we feel helpless and our mind automatically "hopes" for them to get better... since you were only atheist at 15, means you were exposed to "god" before, thus your mind will try to fill "god" into your helpless "hope".

Now, you are weak, mentally due to the news, and when a preacher is reading quotes from bible, part of you want to give into the need to a supreme being, while you logical part is fighting against succumbing into "hope".

I think your logical side/atheist side is losing is what the sickness was about....your mind is *in its weakest state* is trying to fight of things the preacher was saying but was losing the battle. You wanted to believe the preacher at that moment.

when is say fighting, i mean, your mind is joggling both sides(god and no god) but its biased at this moment to rely on a supreme being.

Well that's my take on it.

Sorry to hear about your Mom, hopefully the prognosis is better than it sounds like it could be.

As noted earlier, your answer isn't going to come from the peanut gallery here (including me, lol.) However, it is said that some people lose sight of God in despair and find him in hope, and hope is real, regardless of the reality of its source.

Hang onto whatever positivity you find in this experience and the journey that you and your family will be going on. Whether you see it as prayer, meditation, vibes or just sending positive energy your Mom's way, spending quiet time thinking about her surely can't hurt anything.

Very sorry to hear about your mom. The fact that she has a mass in the pancreas and in the head (rather than body or tail) is certainly concerning. I'm a devout Christian and also in the medical field. Perhaps you're fielding your question here to the wrong crowd. If God is real and He had something to do with how you felt during the prayer, then ask Him. I have no idea whether the two events are related or not (correlation does not prove causation), but He does. Perhaps God really is real and perhaps He did mean to "nudge" you a bit to gain your attention. Perhaps He truly is everything we hope for. Or perhaps you're correct and He's not there at all and your feeling was just fatigue or hypoglycemia or an idiopathic near-syncopal episode.

No harm in asking Him directly though.

Originally posted by Klassified
reply to post by muse7

 

First things first. My best wishes to your mother. May she recover, and have much life left to enjoy.

Never let peer pressure make you participate in holding hands for a group prayer. Especially when you are already emotionally taxed, and physically worn down. You open yourself up to things you don't want. There's much I could say here, but I'll just say this. What happened to you had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with others draining you of your energy, and wearing you down further emotionally.

Op sorry about your mother. An energy shifter/stealer/vampire physicly in the room or did you unconcious do/try to do something? Or maybe you unconcious was not happy with what the preacher read. I have a hard time with some of the things in the bible myself. Only you can find inside yourself a connection if that is what you want to exist so look within. Even if there is a god by your own definition of god, then from my point of view you show you believe in god by your actions and your heart and not with your mind so be ateist or anything else if you want to as long as it does not hurt another.

reply to post by muse7


This is obviously a serious post, and I can relate to that because my mom passed last year.

I can tell you from experience that you were in shock and probably still are. I have experienced something similar to what you described.

I am a rational person who tries to understand the mechanics of things like evolution, astrophysics or even quantum mechanics. Or at least I like to try to understand them.

Yet I do believe in a god as well. I do not think at all that science and a belief in god are mutual exclusive at all.

I just don´t believe in any of the religions, in fact I see some of them as responsible for a huge part of deaths in our past.
No doubt that religion has helped a lot of people as well, but I can´t ignore the negatives. But let´s not get into those details here.

I guess you have to decide for yourself what you want to believe in. You don´t have to believe in science though, that is the beauty. Once you understand it, you know it, you don´t have to believe.

I sincerely hope everything will be fine with your mother. And whatever happens, make sure that there is nothing untold between you. That was and is very reassuring for me. I would have hated to not have the chance to tell something important.

Anyway, focus on the positive and all the best to you.

reply to post by Klassified

What happened to you had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with others draining you of your energy, and wearing you down further emotionally.

This is EXACTLY why I revisited this thread - to say that the group had "sucked" the energy from the OP....

I also think it had something to do with the "shock" or "fear"....
three people in the family? Oh my. That's enough to make anyone feel faint; I get queasy when people just mention organ ailments....it's very strange. I can deal with broken bones, torn flesh, burns, etc. But someone gets to talking about kidney failure and dialysis, or heart problems, or lungs....and I go all green, light-headed, and sweaty.

Anyway, OP, all the best and brightest to you and your mom. You don't say what sect of church your family attends, but...if it were me, I'd remember that 'feeling' as a 'warning.'
I believe our bodies respond to subconscious unease. If your gut tells you that a certain experience is damaging, rather than empowering, then, like Klass says, always feel it's all right to refuse to participate. I've been part of "healing circles" in the Wicca world - they were VERY empowering, exciting....we swirled up a whole bunch of positive energy, holding hands and dancing round a fire....then, when the level was at its peak, we "released" that healing energy into the atmosphere, with clear directions as to whom it was meant for.

It does not matter what you believe or believe not. All are tools and all are used by omniscience. Us finites are merely offered to become aware participants in the process.