“Desirable Sickness”
Lent 2010 – Day 4; Saturday, February 20.
Deshi Ramadhani, SJ
When I was a young teenager I once got very sick. I was literally confined to bed for a whole month. Along the way I learned how to let others help me. I even began to enjoy being sick, since everybody paid attention to me. It was suddenly over when the doctor allowed me to get up and walk. I was healed, and I lost all the special treatments.
Being sick can be so desirable, especially when it is the best way to get attentions. I wonder if the same thing applies to sin. I know I have to get rid of certain repeated sins, yet I also know that staying with this sin will attract God’s attention to me. And that certainly feels good. I’m addicted to the notion of fighting against sin with God.
God wants to heal me, to change my life. Yet I’m afraid to let God do it, since I’m afraid that if I become a better person, I will lose God’s special attention to me.
1 comment:
Being sick is not bad after all. I realize that we I had tendonitis on both of my foot. It was so painful to walk I was forced to stay in bed for almost a week back in 2007. But it's not that type of sickness where you're unconscious or you simply stay in a room without anything. I could still watched tv or even play computer game. I have an excuse not to think about work and people were serving me almost all that I need.
So yes I agree that sometimes we don't want to be cured. We want to be sick, but not THAT sick. Just sick enough so that we don't have to face the 'world' again. It's like if things go wrong, either at home or at work, it's not my problem because I'm sick. Once we're cured we have to face the reality. We have to go to work. We will be out there again.
People said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away ... well I just realize that this phrase is very interesting from the spiritual point of view. That "apple" actually makes us "sick" and separates us away from the "Doctor".
Jesus said that only the sick that requires doctor, not the healthy ones. I wonder IF (assume that it's possible) I'm all cured & have the clean bill from the Doctor, will He ever come to see me again even when I'm ok? Will I ever be able to keep this healthy condition forever so I don't need to see the Doctor again? Or is it better to get sick sometimes so the "Doctor" will see me? Health matter is certainly a very serious stuff.
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