This morning a certain important person in my life who shall remain anonymous brought up a question via email of whether or not Auggie is reaping consequences of me having put an amber teething necklace on him and whether or not that opened up legal grounds for demonic spirits to have access to his life somehow. (He's been crying at bedtime lately and the anonymous person is wondering if this is somehow involved.) This person questioned whether I was trusting in rocks and not God, and thus delving into witchcraft somehow by putting such a necklace on Auggie. ... (Like I said before, if you don't believe in this kind of stuff, you might as well skip the post. ;)
The Background
To set the background, I put an amber teething necklace on Auggie when he was maybe 6 or 7 months old, and used it up until he was about a year. Baltic amber is not actually a stone, but instead a resin from ancient tree sap that has actual chemical properties. When heated up by the skin it releases an oil called succinic acid which can relieve pain when absorbed into the skin. Word on the Web is that Martin Luther himself kept a baltic amber rosary in his pocket to help him with gall stones.
Before Auggie was born I swore I'd never use anything like Tylenol during teething because my baby could just deal with it and I had no desire to pump him full of drugs–even something as seemingly safe as acetaminophen. Fast forward to 5 or 6 months old when he was drooling a gallon a day, crying, and clearly in teething misery: I changed my mind. Auggie got Tylenol twice throughout the night, and eventually I switched to Motrin because it helped with swelling too. That said, I was interested in any alternatives. At first I thought amber teething necklaces were all hocus pocus, and thus wouldn't have gone near such a thing, but when it was explained to me that the amber releases pain relieving succinic acid, I knew we were going beyond hocus pocus and into actual science. So I thought it was worth a try.
Dan and I prayed over the amber necklace, knowing that it's likely that ancient mystics believed that amber had special powers, perhaps worshiped amber, used it to ward off evil, or who knows what else. We felt at peace after praying and went ahead–we were clearly not using the amber teething necklace for any of those purposes. While I wouldn't say that the change was a day-and-night difference, I definitely noticed a difference in Auggie when he wore his teething necklace. He went from decidedly irritable to just maybe a little bit fussy–and a little fussy is tolerable if it means that I'm not pumping him full of chemicals found in Tylenol or Motrin.
The Real Question
Okay, so here's what I'm really dealing with: What is "cleaner" spiritually - natural or modern medicine? I am in no way regretful of putting an amber teething necklace on Auggie. I researched it, found it to be based in science, and prayed over him and the necklace. Enough said. ... But is natural medicine really worse spiritually than modern medicine? If I do in fact need to repent of putting an amber teething necklace on my child, do I also need to repent of vaccinating him?
Natural medicine certainly gets a bad rap from a lot of Christians. (Conversely, I know a lot of Christians who love natural medicine.) Certain paths in natural medicine, for instance Ayurvedic medicine, have a clear non-Jesus-based spiritual involvement. And yet is it wrong to gargle with turmeric, salt, and warm water when you have a sore throat? (An Ayurvedic remedy.) I have to admit that I don't have a full understanding of Ayurveda, so my argument involving it can't really be complete. But what about other types of natural medicine? Going the vitamins/herbs route rather than mainstream pharmaceutical route? I think Christians can fear it because in ancient mystic (aka "demonic") cultures herbs were the only medicines available, and just by association they are now considered spiritual in a bad sense. Do we have to repent for using herbs to cure illnesses because they once were used (or perhaps still are) by people who trust in demonic spirits rather than Jesus? Are the herbs/vitamins/whatever demonic themselves? Or is it the method or heart-condition the part that counts?
But what about modern medicine? Modern medicine can be a true miracle. People can be cured of cancer! Modern medicine can also prevent the spread of HIV. (I just read a very interesting article on nytimes.com about a vaginal gel that just underwent clinical trials and is now proven to reduce the spread of HIV. How cool is that?!) I am thankful for modern medicine on a daily basis–because I do take Tylenol when I have a fever and I can depend on it to take away said fever. And yet the flip side of modern medicine–a side that a lot of Christians don't think about–is dark. What about all the clinical trials that wound up killing people, weakening their bones, giving them cancer, or even spreading HIV? (The article referenced other trials where this had happened with other vaginal gels.) What about the ridiculous amount of money and corruption tied up in drug companies, the FDA, the CDC, and politicians involved in pharmaceutical-related legislation? And what about the fact that a great deal of vaccines come from human cells originally harvested from aborted fetuses back in the 60's? Do we need to repent of modern medicine in the same way that we need to repent of natural medicine? Does injecting ourselves with chemicals and cells having origins in aborted fetuses open our bodies up to demonic spirits?
I don't really have a good conclusion for this blog post. I am gladly drinking red raspberry leaf tea believing that it will help tone my uterus and hopefully even bring on labor in this last week of my pregnancy. I also won't be afraid to take ibuprofen when my milk comes in and I'm so engorged that it's painful. I gladly dip into the smorgasbord of both natural and modern medicine. ... This is simply a topic that I've been thinking about all day and felt like discussing. The email from the above mentioned anonymous person brought up a bunch of questions in my mind, and it almost makes me feel like we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't.
What I do trust in, or, rather who I do trust in is Jesus. And for Him I am thankful. I am confident that when I bring my concerns to him, he will tell me what to do and how to proceed. He will tell me how to protect my family spiritually. And I am truly thankful for that.
3 comments:
I'm totally with you. It's such a weird balance, and you really have no idea what's crazy talk and what might be true. It sounds to me like the amber thing is probably fine- especially if you prayed over it. Ethan has been freaked out lately about a dead frog he saw on the road. He had a nightmare about it and since then wants us to pray for the frog every night. For whatever reason that frog traumatized him a little bit, and you can't get more natural than a dead frog... unless a witch doctor put that frog in front of our house, which I supposed could be a possibility, but I doubt it. We just pray over Ethan's room a lot and hope for the best.
Aww, dead anything is pretty traumatizing as a kid. And I agree with you - praying over things really does seem to be the best route.
Great post, Val. I'll not give my comments since we already talked about it yesterday :P
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