A friend of mine from school has been very sick this past week. He was discharged from the hospital, but we are waiting for test results. We have been constantly praying for him, but this feeling of concern, and the knowledge that we cannot guarantee he will be fine, have made my friends and I feel helpless at times. However, it has also helped me feel a lot of gratitude that in my own life, I am very healthy. It made me grateful for my health, and the health of those I love. It made me appreciate that I have insurance, and good doctors, and people who love me and want me to feel better when I am ill. It made me recognize how lucky my friend is to have so many people who care about him and want him to be healthy.
It is also important to recognize that we all have out part to play. God gives us all our burdens to bear, and the best we can do is to bear them willingly and happily. Compared to the suffering Jesus endured for us, these little things we have to deal with are trivial. It must be a part of God's plan for my friend to be ill, though I do not understand it now. But I still pray to God that he will feel better, and I pray that God will help me, and him, and his family and friends, to understand why he has been chosen to bear this burden of illness.
So here is my prayer:
Dear Lord,
Please help me to be strong when I am weak
To accept the things that I have no control over
To conquer that greatest challenge - myself.
Help me to support my family and friends
To help them with their burdens
And to bear my own cheerfully.
Help me to see illness not as a time of pain
But as an opportunity to be healed
A chance to rely on You and grow closer to You.
And please bless all those who are ill
All those who care about them
And all those who have no one to care for them.
Amen.
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