The last few months have been a season of health challenges
for our family. All five of us have struggled with one thing or the other. Sickness
comes with kinds of challenges and frustrations. It disrupts your life and
wears you down. Then you get tired and frustrated with feeling lousy. However, sickness
is a forced opportunity to press the pause button, step back from the routine of
life and reflect on your life. Let me share a few points of reflection.
Our bodies are frail.
The human body is a complex organism. Its mechanism has been
the source of study for centuries, yet this complex machine is frail. It is incredible
how strong and energetic bodies can be rendered weak and powerless by a bout of
sickness to the point of failing to stand and walk on their own. This frailty
ultimately leads to our death as our breath eventually gives way. It is this frailty that led Job to exclaim, “Man
who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes like a
flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.” (Job 14:1-2)
Sickness makes you
appreciate health.
Ideally, we all should be grateful for good health, but
unfortunately, we take it for granted and just assume that we will wake up and
go about our day without a fuss. Because we presume good health, we are rarely
grateful for it. Sickness, therefore, can knock us out of our comfort zone; it
reminds us that sound health is not a guarantee. Something about being
bedridden makes you thankful even for the slightest bit of good health.
We are dependent and
vulnerable beings.
The irony of human beings is our desire and attempt to be
independent. In our pride, we even entertain the illusion of independence, but the
reality is that we were created to be entirely dependent on God and interdependent
on fellow people. God created us to be dependent, and God alone is the all-sufficient
one, and in Him, we are made complete. He also created us as social beings. No
wonder we are born into families and live within a community; even the church
is designed to be a family, a community of believers living together. There is
a blessedness to biblical dependence on God and the community. Sometimes, it
takes sickness to remind you to appreciate the community.
Being weak and bedridden makes you vulnerable and in desperate
need of help. Being needy is in the nature of imperfect, dependent beings.
Granted, a person can be abused by other people, but the truth still stands
that dependency and vulnerability are a part of the package of God’s creation
of man. This vulnerability gives other people a chance to minister to you as
they sympathise and empathise with your situation and show kindness to you. It
is self-centeredness that will cause someone to abuse this blessing, and it is
pride that will cause one to pretend and appear self-sufficient.
Psalm 103 has greatly encouraged my soul. Hear the words of
David:
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless
his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your
life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies
you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.
