Sickness

I have been blessed with this weakness of mine – more blessed than I could ever realise…

Raising of Jairus' Daughter (Vasilij Dmitrievich)

I hate being sick and I hate being weak.

Perhaps it is because of my personality?  Perhaps because of the way I was raised?  Perhaps it is the work that I do or the person who I married or my role as a mother?  But, whatever the reason, I really really do not like being sick and/or weak…

I have been thinking about that over the last few months.  This year, I was required to have another very big surgery.  Those sorts of things are annoying.  They require a period of recovery and tend to get in the way of lots of fun things in my life – like work and socialising and all sorts of other things.

I am not really complaining about the pain of being sick or recovering – that is one thing, and while an inconvenience, it is certainly in my experience, not the worst part of it…  What I am really complaining about is the feeling of weakness – that interruption to the course of my life that I have plotted out for myself…  THAT is a feeling that I really really dislike…

And that is what I have been reflecting on.  You see, while I have a chronic health condition that has affected me for most of my adult life in one way or another, it is not the condition itself that causes me the most frustration, but my inability to work around it at times when it requires surgical intervention…  It is one thing to be unwell, and quite another to be so unwell that you need to cancel plans and rearrange things so that you can obtain treatment for a condition.

Now, I am not really complaining about this disease – after all it is not life threatening and is rather just life-interrupting occasionally and a bit of a nuisance – but I have been reflecting on what can be gained from this experience.

What I have noticed is that those people around me who have been blessed with almost perfect health are the people who are least compassionate about my recovery.  It is those people who are most often responsible for saying and doing things that are difficult for me to bear while I am recovering.  And I know that they do not do this intentionally.  In fact, if they realised how hurtful and uncompassionate, they really are during those trying times, I am sure that they would be horrified. 

And I have found this experience of illness and weakness a special kind of blessing.  For I have been able to share something of Christ’s love for others through my own growing compassion.

Saint Faustina wrote in her Diary at 1268, “I am writing all this very briefly because it is not my intention to write about such things, and I am doing so merely to dissuade souls from treating others in this way, for this is displeasing to the Lord. In a suffering soul we should see Jesus Crucified, and not a loafer or burden on the community. A soul who suffers with submission to the will of God draws down more blessings on the whole convent than all the working sisters. Poor indeed is a convent where there are no sick sisters. God often grants many and great graces out of regard for the souls who are suffering, and He withholds many punishments solely because of the suffering souls.”

And it occurs to me today, that I have been blessed with this weakness of mine – more blessed than I could ever realise…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.