By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Try visiting in any of the hospitals nowadays and you will see a lot of sick people. During this season, our hospitals are overflowing with patients. A month ago, even the hospital in the small municipality of Barlig had more patients than its 25 beds. This was not the case 40-50 years ago. This was not the case during my lola’s time. During those times, when they felt unwell, they would sit or lie down, rest and sleep. They would not even eat because usually when one feels weak, the appetite is weak, too. And once rested, they would soon be up and about because they have regained their strength. Without taking any medicine, they have been healed! From whence did healing come from?
In those times, too, when people cut themselves, they didn’t reach for band-aid or iodine or alcohol. The wound would just heal on its own. If the cut was deep, the most they would do would be to wash the wound and apply crushed sunflower or camote leaves or other healing leaves. And they healed. From whence did that healing come from?
Believe it or not, your body heals itself. Everyone is endowed with miraculous healing powers by the architect and creator of the universe. I repeat- EVERYBODY has natural healing powers. This loving Creator does not play favorites and gave built-in healing powers to each one, whether you are Jew, Muslim, Christian or unchurched. After all, everybody is His creation, believer or not, right? God loves us all and that is great news!
Our body is designed to heal itself. Notice also how blood would spontaneously clot immediately after a small cut. And wonder of wonders, the cut will be healed after some days and your skin is as good as new. If the cut is shallow, there will really be no scar! Isn’t that amazing? One time I cut my finger and just to prove what I learned in school that blood has natural clotting power, I just observed the blood flow out. True enough, after a little while, the blood stopped flowing on its own because the blood started clotting. I had cut my fingers a lot of times and I no longer see where the previous cuts were. Although deep cuts leave scars, still these wounds heal by themselves. Even if you don’t put crushed sunflower leaves or iodine or band-aid. That is our built-in self- healing power! And that is part of our nature as humans. And that power has been there since we were conceived and since time immemorial. Praise be to our most loving Maker!
Let us take another example. Fever. Fever is a coping mechanism of our body to excrete excessive energy and prevent this excessive energy from damaging vital organs in our body. For the observant believer (who didn’t take any anti-fever medicine), they would notice that fever, generally, would go away by itself after one or two days of rest. It is important, however, to listen to what your body is saying. If your body feels weak or dizzy and you feel like you just want to lie down, then stop what you are doing, lie down and rest so nature can do the self-repair job. Just like a jeep, it cannot be repaired while the motor is running – the driver has to stop the engine before it can be repaired. With fever, the patient also loses his appetite. Your body is also telling you not to eat because the body wants to concentrate its energy reserves on healing. Digesting food, which includes chewing, requires energy and that would compete with what should be spent for the healing job. So don’t force food. Once the self-healing is finished, your appetite will return and you will recover your strength to eat. So while you were sleeping, your body was healing itself! Isn’t that a miracle!
Another thing that science has discovered is the healing power in our blood. The white blood cells in our blood automatically kill germs and clean the blood of anything they recognize as foreign. Unlike tourist spots, our body considers foreigners as “enemy” and, therefore, are to be eliminated or at least, captured and detained. These foreigners include bacteria, viruses and parasites that somehow manage to enter our blood stream. But thank God, He has provided natural defense forces swimming in our bloodstream 24/7 on a “search and destroy” mission. Can you imagine that? A 24/7 emergency response team. We are not conscious of them, we don’t give them awards of valor, but they do just go on doing their job.
This miraculous power to repair and regenerate itself is mind-boggling really. And this amazing healing power is given to all creatures, not just to people, praise God! Farmers would easily understand this because they see this natural healing power in plants and animals. Believe me, farmers are great scientists. Beans, rice and corn bent by the storm would soon recover and grow. Dog and carabao wounds would heal by themselves. And I am sure those who are fortunate to have grown in the “ili” would remember the nail marks in the guavas (naggenaggeng). Those wounds on the guava skin inflicted by your nail have healed spontaneously! If they didn’t heal, then that guava would have become rotten. Wait, if all living creatures have natural healing powers, then that includes bacteria and viruses. Truly! So we should not wonder why we now have antibiotic resistance. Some bacteria, like the TB bacteria, have developed resistance to the antiboiotics that were developed to kill them. Apparently, everyone- from humans to animals and plants and germs have natural healing powers. That should make us reflect deeply.**
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though there are no miracles. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
