I’ve been blessed by good health during my life, but I didn’t really appreciate it until recently. In the last few years, we’ve lost a few family members to illnesses, and as I have watched other loved ones age and fall ill, I’ve come to see health in a different light.
It’s great to be healthy. But, sometimes, there are great graces in the suffering of illnesses.
I’ve experienced this from some of my closest family members and friends. I’ve watched them suffer, and though they make it look easy to the outside world, I’ve been behind the curtain of pain with them. It’s not often that I glimpse the pain they bear, but when I have, I have been astounded.
How do they DO that? I always wonder.
The answer isn’t personal fortitude. The answer isn’t amazing strength of character. The answer isn’t a buckle-down mentality.
Or is it?
Where does this sort of ability come from? Why do some people have so much pain and others, like me, are mostly pain-free?
And just what does Mary have to do with all of this?
I don’t know the answers, but I offer some thoughts in my column today at Faith & Family Live on Mary, Health of the Sick.
Image credit: Suzanne M. Young
