When I read that \u201cthe terminally ill\u201d is he who is medically expected to live up to six months, I recalled my father-in-law. He had fallen ill. I had a friend who is a doctor, living abroad, he singles me out with a visit every time he comes to Lebanon. I consulted him about my father-in-law\u2019s condition. He said: \u201che still has six months\u201d. He gave an opinion as a specialist. The six months went by. He was in Lebanon. He called me asking to pay us a visit to offer us his condolences. The condolence visit took place two years after the discovery of the disease. Life and death are in God's hands. I am not debating with those who, on the spur of the moment, request to terminate the lives of their dying patients. What I am saying is that had you asked my father-in-law about this decision of termination, when it had become difficult for him to make the decision, he would have answered you: \u201cnow I am starting to live\u201d! If death is not certain before us, our option is to choose life. I know how hard it is to defend life in Lebanon nowadays! What I am telling you, whether Lebanon is in the abyss or on the heights, it can only be affirmed by our awareness that we are partners in one destiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I read that \u201cthe terminally ill\u201d is he who is medically expected to live up to six months, I recalled my father-in-law. He had fallen ill. I had a friend who is a doctor, living abroad, he singles me out with a visit every time he comes to Lebanon. I consulted him about my ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[343],"tags":[2087,2901,2899,1332,2900],"class_list":["post-7558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-divine-providence","tag-lebanon-christian-community","tag-life-and-death","tag-orthodox-christian-ethics","tag-terminal-illness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7851,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558\/revisions\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}