Testimony of Healing January 4, 1993 Issue

Just a few hours after our son was born, the pediatrician...

Julie L. Hammar Rosa

Just a few hours after our son was born, the pediatrician on duty at the hospital came into my room. She told me that although my son was healthy, there was a large birthmark covering most of one leg. She said further that this condition was permanent and would interfere with the normal development of the leg, and that the only possible remedy might be to perform laser surgery after his twelfth birthday. She gave me the telephone number of a dermatologist and said she would examine the baby again in three days, before we went home from the hospital.

I was at first overwhelmed by thoughts of guilt, wondering what I could have done during my pregnancy to cause such thing to happen. This speculation stopped when I realized what I was into: reasoning incorrectly that there could be any cause apart from God. God is the Father and Mother of all of us, including my son; God is the only creator, and all that He creates is absolutely good. Therefore he was perfect, pure, and unspotted. There was nothing that I could say, do, or think that could separate man from omnipotent God and affect His creation negatively. I had to refuse any mental suggestion of guilt or blame and to understand scientifically that both the guilt and the birthmark were unreal, without an origin, and therefore not part of my experience or my son's.

I prayed along these lines throughout the rest of my brief stay in the hospital. During the final examination, the same pediatrician indicated on his record that the mark was fading. It was indeed considerably lighter. She was obviously very surprised by this. When we took our son for his two-week follow-up visit with a different pediatrician, this doctor's only remark was "What a healthy baby!"

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