To die at this point is his life was tragic, to be sure. But the
real tragedy lies in the fact that it might have been avoidable.
He was diagnosed just after the wedding, but refused to seek medical
help. Instead, encouraged by his new father-in-law, he and his new
bride prayed for a miracle. As this same father-in-law put in the
eulogy, you either put your faith in Man or in God and he was quite
pleased to say that my cousin chose the latter.
But faith couldn't save him. Does this present a challenge to the
faithful? Not at all. It just goes to show that my cousin was
"appointed unto death" by God himself. Nothing could have saved
him, and indeed we should not stand in way of the will of God.
God had other plans, namely preaching the gospel to the billions
of souls in paradise who haven't made it into heaven yet.
So it seems that faith[1] strengthens whether it works or not.
Such is the nature of the disease, in many ways more pernicious
than cancer.
[1] To be fair to those on the list that don't distinguish between
"faith" and "belief", I want to clarify that I am referring to
dogmatic faith in this message.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/