I feel like a lot of the stories I write are bummers and that may just be my life in some ways but I also have some funny ones.
I have a phrase I sometimes say to people - “I’d pray for you, but you don’t want that.” Most of the time people laugh and move on but recently a coworker asked me “why wouldn’t I want that?” (I work with therapists so it was bound to happen sooner or later.)
To preface a lot of this, I need to explain how Mormon blessings of health work - you put oil on someone’s noggin, you say a special prayer, then you announce God’s will for them - usually it’s something like “God wants you to be healthy” and then they stay sick but it’s not a big deal. It’s like a “peace of mind” thing tbh. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Except when I do it weird shit happens, so I had to explain that the people I pray for do not often recover from it, or they do at great cost. I remember when @inbabylontheywept was about 11 and I was 12. I had just received the Aaronic priesthood and Babs got a bad case of food poisoning and was not able to keep Zophran down long enough for it to work. So my dad, faithful and strong head of the household, tried giving him a blessing of health. He got Babs set up, he got the consecrated oil, and then in a fit of fatherly excitement realized I had JUST received the priesthood. And because he was SO excited about that he forgot that the Aaronic priesthood does not have the authority to give blessings of health. So he calls me over from my hiding place away from Babs puking sounds (because I am a sympathy puker) and tells me how to put the oil on and put my hands on his head and say the introductory part of the blessing.
Once that is all done, I had free reign to say whatever felt right, so I said “God wants you to be healed” and said amen and Babs immediately slumps off the stool he was on and passes out. My dad said he was probably just tuckered out from being sick so I didn’t think anything of it and went on my way.
Well, a few years later, I now hold the Melchizedek priesthood and I am on my mission in Mexico City. I’ve been assigned to an area affectionately called “La Goma” (The Middle of Nowhere). My companion (who I was fucking head over heels enamored with) and I leave the house to go visit some people when a guy from the ward asks if we can give him a blessing. I say “hell yeah” because hell yeah, right? He says he’s felt a little sick so I put the oil on his head and give him a blessing and as soon as I say “amen” he slumps, and I notice the right side of his face is drooping. He right hand is clumsy, he’s limping with his right leg, his speech is slurred, and I go “Hey he’s having a stroke and will die very soon unless he gets to a hospital!” so we find a ward member with a car and make the trip to the hospital where his life was miraculously saved from the brink of death because the part of his brain impacted by the stroke was a part of the brain responsible for breathing.
At this point I am 2 for 2 on KOing people I bless, so I try and steer clear of it until my last area where my companion and I are asked to give a blessing to a man who swears he is sick and needs a blessing NOW. I anoint him with oil, I say the little prayer, I bless him, and as soon as I say “amen” he slumps out of the chair and stops breathing. I freak out and pull out my Boyscout first aid tricks, then call my dad, a medical doctor, and describe what’s going on and he says “that sounds like a seizure,” which was in alignment with what the guy was saying his problems were.
He comes to after the seizure is done and asks us to leave, to which we gladly oblige. Walking home my companion goes “I’ve never seen anything like that” to which I said “it happens to me every damn time I give a blessing,” and he immediately says “well then next time someone asks for a blessing say no!” and ever since that day I always said no when asked to give people blessings.
I know it sounds like a weird fluke, it could be bad luck for sure, but also the doctor who delivered me died AT MOST an hour later of a heart attack - I was the last baby he ever delivered. I have sword autism and gun autism and I am the only one of my siblings to ever kill an elk while hunting. Every time we did family scripture study and read about God sending the Angel Of Death my parents would stop and look at me before they could continue reading. Idk what it is about me but I am apparently blessed with some sort of Divine Right to Execute, like if James Bond and the Pope merged into one single being and that being was belligerently bisexual and nerfed with gender dysphoria.
I have no moral to this story, really, except that you should take my word for it when I say you do not want my thoughts and prayers.
