Down With the Sickness

Earlier this week I was very sick with food poisoning. I won't go into details, but anyone who's had this illness knows how disgusting and awful it is. When I was in its throes - fever, chills like crazy - enduring the longest train ride home in my life from work (where I got sick) I was thinking how being sick not only affects the body, but the mind & spirit - everything sucks and one cannot notice the beauty of being healthy when they feel like crap, nor the beauty of ANYTHING, not sleep because shivering keeps one awake, not water because it gets thrown up, etc. It gives one's world the "blue screen" and it becomes time to reboot.

And now that I feel better, I feel BETTER - like 120% - everything feels better; my bearings are oiled and my gears sharp! It is like being (for lack of a better term) born again. Not being sick is the best. And don't we all take for granted those days of health that go by like a breeze? And while mine was an involuntary experience, there are those experiences that are sought after for the intentional pain that eventually lead to the relief that is worth the risk - such as a mother giving birth, laying down one's life for a friend, donating a kidney, etc..in short: sacrifice.

A man appeared before St. Peter, who asked him, "Where are your wounds?"

The man replied, "I have no wounds."

To which Peter rejoined, "Was there no passion in your life, no cause in which you spent and risked yourself that would invite scars?"

Martin Zender, a very insightful modern-day prophetic and ex-Catholic is a biblical scholar who is one of few brave enough to talk about how our all-encompassing God is both good AND evil (evil is not to be mistaken with sin) - because truly we cannot appreciate the good without experiencing the bad, too. It is in this necessary contrast that our greatest appreciations surface and I totally agree with this logic. It makes perfect sense. As nature is both cruel and loving, as is the Creator. If people were in a Utopian state the entirety of their lives, never knowing strife or sorrow, how are they to know happiness? When bad things happen, it often brings out the best in people and can often bring people closer to the Lord. And, while the crucifixion was a violent, non-sinful example of torment and suffering, it was brought forth through God, not Satan...and it was an evil act against the Son of God, yet a necessary and great event.

"I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; 6That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, 7The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these."

Isaiah 45:5-7

And speaking of sickness, I am truly grateful that my illness was purely bacterial-viral and that it was neither contagious, nor caused harm to anyone else...some are not so fortunate:

Church Youth Minister Allegedly Paid Children For Sex

MSNBC.com - Mon., Nov. 5, 2007

LAKELAND, Fla. - Police said a youth minister was arrested for allegedly having sex with more than one child. According to police, Marshal Seymour turned himself in Friday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest, WESH 2 News reported. The Lakeland Police Department said the warrant came after an investigation that Seymour committed numerous sexual offenses while he was a volunteer youth minister at the First Baptist Church at the Mall in Lakeland. Police said Seymour allegedly engaged in sexual activity with more than one minor and often paid the victims money for the sexual conduct or to keep quiet about the encounters that had occurred. Seymour was charged with unlawful sexual activity, using a child in sexual performance, and tampering with evidence. Police said they are still investigating the allegations.