The Blessings of a Sickly Life

Being sick is rarely fun. I should know, because I spend an inordinate amount of time being ill. There’s a handful of complicated health factors that aid in this which really aren’t worth expounding. Suffice to say, I’m not a permanently sickly person, but I do get sick quite often. In fact, (though, I myself have never actually done the math) it’s been attested to by my friends and family that I spend at least half of my time being unwell. Those of you who live similar lives will understand the various difficulties that illness presents, and those of you who tend towards health will at least likely know someone who faces struggles of this sort. And indeed, aside from the sickness itself, there are many and varied trials that go along with it all (trying to hold a job, being present with friends, attempting to go to church during flu-season, etc.)

But I do not want to talk about the trials. That’s not what this post is about. I want to talk about the blessings of a sickly life.

Through a story… So, settle in…

Recently, I have spent nearly a week in bed, running a relatively high fever, battling a raging sinus infection, and hacking my lungs out from bronchitis (a thing which ain’t nobody got time for). I was constantly feeling just shy of miserable, which is almost as bad as being miserable itself — too sick to do anything, but too well to just surrender to the sick. But early during the week I had the great blessing to receive a phone call from a friend. We spoke for over an hour on various topics, but part of the conversation took a corrective/admonishing tone. I was informed of some manners that I was prone to, and which I needed desperately to correct. The call ended and I resumed my convalescing.

It was to be another four days before I was able to start feeling like myself again, and during that time I had great liberty to think.

I have been wronging people without realizing, and it has to stop. In the past, these sorts of realizations have very nearly made me ill all on their own. This one caught me during the midst of an illness, and I wholly expected it to worsen my constitution. Yet, the weakness into which the admonition was spoken allowed it to bury itself deep within my soul. There it began to germinate. Now, tendrils of understanding have begun to burrow through my thinking, bringing a new life of conviction slowly with it. I don’t know what it will be that finally sprouts into the light of day, but I know it will be alive and living, green with life.

You see, God meets us in our weakness. Psalm 46 presents God as a refuge and fortress, a “very present help in trouble” (vs. 1). Later in the psalm it talks about how God is always there. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns...” (vs. 4-5, emphasis added) Let me say that again: God is there.

God is there.

This is the holy omnipresence of God. Perhaps we should remove the T, and say “God is here“.

God. Is. Here.

How do I know that God is here/there/everywhere? Because I’ve tried to run away. I’ve tried to escape before. (I’ve come to realize many of us have.) I’ve tried to hide, and run, and ignore, and pretend He isn’t right there, all the time, every time, with me in all the public and private moments of my life, EVEN IN MY VERY THOUGHTS(!!); but He is. (Psalm 139)

He is there.

He is here.

In my sickness, in my strength; in my humility, in my pride; in my purity, in my filth; in my righteousness, in my sin; in my faithfulness, and in my cosmic treason against the Lord Most High, He is there. He is here.

When I praise His name to the world, He is there! When I lift up my own name to the world, He is still here. When I live rightly before His law, He is there!

And when I desecrate the holy temple of God within me, He is still here. Because He knows me. He is patient with me. He loves me…

And He is making me into something more than I could ever dream of being.

I was once far off, an enemy of God and His Kingdom, but now He has brought me near, to be one of His children by the working of His Holy Spirit, through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ (which is the ONLY thing that can wash a sinner clean!)

When was I far off? When I was four years old. That’s when I became Saved. Of this, I am sure. But that hasn’t kept me from trying to swap sides now and again, in my extreme foolishness. Yet, He is patient. He is here, with me.

So, where does being sick tie into all this?

Well, remember how I said that God meets us in our weakness? Were it not for the grace of God, enacted upon me through my sickness this passed week, through the needed words of a loving friend, and the ministering power of the Word of God, I would not have realized the depth of these things.

I suspect I have taught nobody anything through this, and that wasn’t my goal.

This was merely a testimony to the grace and goodness of God, poured out on me through my suffering.

If you are sick, suffering, ailing, remember that God is there.

God. Is. Here.

How has He shown you grace in your trials and sufferings? Because if you are His, He has…