Article October 13, 2003 Issue

Safe when exposed to contagion

By Janet Clements

My Neighbor Had Just Called To Tell Me that her daughter had chickenpox. Their doctor said that the day she spent playing with my children was the day that she was the likeliest to infect others. There had been lots of physical contact, as all the children played together in a small playhouse mixing up "concoctions" of seedpods and water and grass. They'd also eaten lunch together.

That medical prediction began to weigh on me heavily, and I was concerned that my children would come down with chickenpox. But prayer was there to help us all—not unlike the way it had helped people in Bible stories I knew, which teach important spiritual lessons for all time. There are comforting instances in the Bible of people who were directly exposed to communicable illness and, despite physical contact, never became sick, because of prayer.

The Israelites, for instance, were protected when a fast-spreading, deadly plague surrounded them. Moses, their leader, apparently did not see illness as God's will for the people. He made an immediate atonement of prayer and intercession for the people. His prayer was so effective that the plague stopped (see Num. 16:43-50).