In Illness, Spirituality Is A Balm For Your Mind And Body Health.

"God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my soul,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber,
God in mine ever-living soul,
God in mine eternity."

Ancient Celtic oral traditions - Carmina Gadelica

When we fall ill, we come face to face with our mortality. We put a hold on unfinished projects, the places we wish to visit before we retire, the grandchildren we want to help raise and other burning projects we want to start die. This is enough to scare us. Paradoxically, this is not the time to get scared because anxiety has its own problems. It makes us sick and causes our body to produce stress hormones that attack our immune system to wreck our body. This is not what we need in sickness as we need our immune system to help us heal. It is therefore imperative that on such occasions, we find the meaning in our suffering.

The only way we can find the meaning in our suffering is to keep God in our sight. The spiritual realm can give us shelter and peace of mind to take one day at a time. It can make us yield to the plans God has for us, not what we want for ourselves. It can make us become like the children who are beholden to their mother and cannot survive without her. It makes us vulnerable and hence gives us the childlike "faith that passeth all understanding." This is the only way we can bask in the God healing light so we can heal. We heal when we upload all our worries unto Him. We have peace of mind when we keep Jesus in our boat and wake Him up when the storms in our life are threatening to drown us. We have assurance when He wakes up and calms the stormy weather and the seas to make our lives easier. This is the only way we can heal when we are ill. The peace of mind that living with Christ in our boat gives us is the only real assurance we need to heal.

Our poetry allows us to remember that our integrity is not in our body,

that despite our physical limitations,

our suffering and our fears, there is something in us that is not touched, something shining.

Our poetry is its voice. To hear that voice is to know the power to heal. To believe.
- Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

"Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning."

Victor Frankl