Living our Broken Life in a broken world

 

Why are some people born deformed or with life threatening diseases?

Have you wondered why some people are born deformed, with life threatening diseases, with weird syndromes that affect their growth, with major allergies, with ADHD, with chemical imbalances in their brain or with being carriers of diseases like thalassemia? 

When my son was born almost 20 years ago, he was born healthy and was fine. My wife had a safe delivery. However, very soon as my wife started feeding him milk, his whole body was filled with rashes. His soft body was covered with so many red colored spots, that we had no clue what was happening. My mom who was present with us, started expressing grief, and was concerned as to what is happening to her grandson? As a born-again Christian, I was praying, Lord, I follow you with all my heart, mind, and soul and how come my child, whom you gave as a promise, is struggling with so much pain and suffering?  

To prevent our son from scratching himself and bleed, we were forced to put socks on his tiny hands with a rubber band, so that he would not take it off and scratch himself. Upon the pediatrician’s guidance we did a blood test and we found that he was strongly allergic to almost every food groups.  My wife resorted to eat only those things that were less allergic to our son, like rice, coconut, lentils etc. As we prayed and sought the Lord for the next 18 months, he was finally healed from most his allergies, except for nuts. He is currently a healthy adult; however he still struggles with other minor medical issues, just like many of us.

This may not be the case for many people; some have suffered from childhood and have not found healing or restoration.  Ironically, the world we live in is broken, and we as broken people fail to comprehend our brokenness and how it dramatically affects our life on this earth.  Many people continue to struggle with life challenging issues which debilitates them and one wonders why God has not taken any action to restore their health.

Interestingly, neither the Bible nor any religious book in the world shares the exact reason as to why a person is born in a certain way. However, the Bible is the only scripture that provides us some clear insight, as to why this kind of pattern exists among people, especially who are born with deformity or with other life challenges.

In the beginning God created the heaven and earth and he created man in his image. In his image, he was perfect in every aspect. However, due to man’s rebellion against a Holy God, sin was introduced into this world, which is why we see so much brokenness in our life and in the world around us. 

Sin as stated in Genesis 3, introduced a lot of consequences. Firstly, men were forced to toil on this earth for food and face challenges dealing with the nature (plants and animals) around them. Secondly, women would bear children in pain, & they will desire for their husbands even though men will rule over them. Ironically, the issue we see today about the inequality among men and women, is an outcome of sin too. Thirdly, the entire earth was cursed because of man’s rebellion. 

This is why, we see children being born in pain and some suffering there after, men ruling over their wives and sometimes abusing their spouses, men struggling to earn their livelihood for their family. In short, the entire man/woman relationship is completely screwed up. Sin transformed perfect man into an imperfect human being, allowing all of humankind to experience brokenness in everything we have- relationships, sickness, ageing, death, corruption, selfishness, wickedness etc., all are manifestations of this sin, that started almost 7000 years ago. The nature around us is also completely broken – we see famines, earthquakes, flooding, hurricanes, pestilences, forest fire, global warming etc., in short, we see utter chaos in the world we live in, since it is completely broken. 

The manifestation of the brokenness comes into the life of each person in different ways. For example, all the life challenges (like all the deformities mentioned above) that we see in our our life are all manifestations of the brokenness that exist in our lives. Some are crippled from birth, while others could be crippled after living many years in this life. Sickness manifests in our life in many ways, either from conception or when we live our life on earth and this is due to the sin that exists in our life on this earth.

All of this you can deny it, but you cannot ignore the manifestations of sin in all our lives. Humankind is corrupt from the day he or she is born. We do not need to teach a baby how to lie or to steal, it is inherent in them. We express love upon our kids when they steal or lie, but when they are adults and do the same act, we as a society put them into prisons. That is the reality. The inherent nature has not changed unless they restrain themselves and have self-control. Corruption and wickedness are not birthed from outside, rather they are birthed within man, even though they maybe influenced from the outside. The heart of all men and women is sinful. We all ask why is this so? Ironically, we fail to recognize the root cause of all this started thousands of years ago and it has passed on through generations. Even medical science recognizes hereditary traces of sickness, that is a small example of the manifestation of sin.  

On this earth there is no cure for our broken world. The idea of birth- rebirth is faulty, since it has no proof, rather it is a figment of man’s imagination with a desire to solve the problem of the corrupt nature that we all have. Ironically, we all die in the end. We can either accept that and assume we have no sin in us and be doomed forever.  Or we can find the hope for life in this life itself.  Sin is so huge and impacts every area of our life, that man on his own ability cannot solve it himself/herself. The solution can only be reconciled by a Holy and Omnipotent God, who cannot allow sin to come into his presence. Therefore, God came down to earth and took the form of man in the person of Jesus. Jesus came to die on the cross, so that his blood could be shed for mankind, so that he could take on the entire sin of this world on himself. He destroyed sin when he died on the cross, even though he was sinless.  Then he resurrected on the 3^rd day by which God attained victory over sin and death for all mankind.

Today, man does not need to do any Karma to have eternal life, rather all they are required to do is accept Jesus and his sacrifice through the repentance of their sins, recognizing that on our own, we can do nothing. Our life on earth is miserable without the grace of God upon us. The choice is now ours to make, we can either accept Jesus as our Savior and Sanctifier or reject him. All our good works will never take us to heaven, rather it will be the forgiveness of your sins through faith in Jesus, that will guarantee us a place in heaven, since no matter what we do, it will have some corruption in it.

One thing is certain, from the Bible, that God’s grace, love, and mercy is much greater for those who are born with lesser abilities than many of us normal people. Even if we accept Jesus, our life is not really transformed to a life of no pain on the earth, rather once you accept Jesus, he will be right during our pain and suffering and carry us through it. This life on earth is painful but hope in Christ and forgiveness from Jesus is the only way to have eternal life from the sting of death which is sin.

Jesus loves you, so he wants every person on this earth to be saved. All we must do is believe in the work he did on the cross for all mankind through the repentance of our sins. Then we will be saved from all this brokenness of this world.