One of my students awoke one morning and found she could not unclench her fist, nor straighten her leg. During her hospitalisation, she was diagnosed with myotonia.
Myotonia is a genetic disease that affects the muscular and the nervous system. Patients will find relaxing their muscles to be difficult. For most patients, the symptoms only manifest themselves at age 18-20. There is no known cure.
How can I bear to explain to her this: the life that she once knew no longer applies. From now on, her movements will be limited and her odds of starting a family have fallen way below average.
Why this is happen? In my head, I know the answers. Scientifically, the disease is autosomal dominant and thus was inherited. Her parents do not have the symptoms so it appeared that some epigenetic trait saved them.
Theologically, I know that this is a recognition that sin had infected the world and the disease is a manifestation of that.
Practically, I could advise her how to adjust her lifestyle to aid herself.
Yet, these are not answers she needs yet.
I only can pray. Despite how desperate the situation it, I can trust God is in charge.
"Yet at the same time Christian faith is more absurdly, outrageously more hopeful than liberal rationalism, with its unhinged belief that not only is the salvation of the human species possible but that, contrary to all we read in the newspapers, it has in principle already taken place. Not even the rose-tinted Trotskyist believes that." -- Terry Eagleton
