A newspaper cartoon from a couple of years ago satirized our society’s all-too-consuming conversations about disease and death. In it, a grandparent’s car has a bumper sticker that reads: “Grandkids are fine—ask me about my medical problems.”
We certainly understand how overwhelming sickness can seem and have deep compassion for people who want someone to listen to their troubles or their worries about another. But, as Mary Baker Eddy, an outstanding Christian healer, pointed out, this type of speculation and commiseration detracts from healing.
She warned in one of her sermons: “We are constantly thinking and talking on the wrong side of the question. The less said or thought of sin, sickness, or death, the better for mankind, morally and physically” (Christian Healing, p. 9). The Bible also warns about this kind of talk, and Psalm 41 exposes its subtle danger, alerting us that it often occurs among well-meaning friends. The psalm shows how God defends us from it with His rainbow promise of protection, which reveals we are firmly and permanently established in heaven right here on earth.
