Article October 21, 2002 Issue

DEFENSE against DISEASE

By Bea Roegge

"Your Daughter Will Break Out With Measles on Christmas Day." This is what the mother of one of our daughter's friends told me on the telephone. She was being caring by telling me that she had unknowingly allowed our daughter to be exposed to the disease when she visited their home.

I felt a surge of fear for my children. But I had learned a lot about contagion a year or so before. And from this, I knew it was not the time to be afraid, but instead to prove, through prayer, that God does not create His children capable of harming one another through any means, including infectious diseases. I prayed. And our daughter never came down with measles—then or ever. Nor did I hear of any more cases in our school district.

The lesson I had learned earlier, and that helped me then, began when a close friend called to tell me that her son had impetigo. Over the following days she mentioned details of the disease. I listened sympathetically, but felt no concern for our children. After all, we hadn't visited with that family recently. Actually, we had been out of town, visiting grandparents, and our children had not had contact with other children. So I felt we were safe.