A Touch Of Ill-Health

SUN., NOV. 15, 1987, 5:44 AM
FARM, STUDY

You awake this morning to a touch of ill-health. You know not from whence it comes in the suddenness of its onset. It is a condition of mild discomfort, but one to which you are not accustomed. Obviously I am aware of this “touch.” And thus you are interested in employing this uncomfortable early morning hour in hearing this view. Listen, o son.

You have very few experiences with ill-health. Several times yesterday, as you felt or anticipated twinges in your back as you moved in foolish ways, you recalled, very briefly, the prospect of a permanent disability and what this would have meant to your functioning as a person. I say again that this was a valuable experience, even as I didn’t cause it to happen. You learned an important spiritual lesson… and then were able, with some help from Me, to return to vigorous health again. You must appreciate that incident as fully as possible. It was important to you as a healthy person, as a Christian, and as a health educator – one who defines this term health in quite holistic ways.

You did not emphasize enough, this last week, the notion that even when you are physically ill or disabled you can still be holistically healthy, particularly healthy in spirit. In discomfort you come to Me this morning, and you are writing well. Except in intense pain, a strong spirit, even one such as yours, can function well, and it is such spiritual activity that encourages the healing process and the return to full health.

It is clear from the letters of My servant Paul, those that became Holy Scripture, that he suffered from some condition of ill-health. He prayed fervently that I take it from him, allowing him to be a fully healthy evangel, but I would not. It was a normal condition of ill-health in his body, and it was good for his proud spirit to have to live with it. Yes, it did prevent a few from coming in admiration, but it also drew some who would not have listened and believed had they not identified with this imperfection. Always be reminded of this truth: however you are and whatever you do, some shall applaud, identify, and be attentive, while the same conditions shall turn others away. My life as Jesus, though without a disability, was a vivid illustration of this truth.

The major tests of spirit in earth life are those in which some condition if ill-health, in the body or in some other dimension of being, prevails, giving you the opportunity of utilizing spirit to generate healthy functioning, despite the discomfort. So I urge you to be aware of these occasions as they come along, and, right along with honest efforts to alleviate the discomfort and return to full health, appreciate the opportunity to display health in this incomplete but important way. It is not a straightforward way to develop spirit, but it is one of the curiously effective ones that I have helped develop, here in the earth. Remember that many of the people that I encountered, as Jesus, in the Scriptural stories, were ones with some condition of ill-health, sometimes social, sometimes physical… even spiritual. Read the Gospels with this perspective, and you shall see this lesson well-illustrated.

The approach to these touches of ill-health is a variation on the approach to life that I have taught you in various ways. Participate in life as fully as possible, as if everything depended on your decisions and actions, and, AT THE SAME TIME, as if I were the major determining factor, especially in terms of consequences. The variation is: seek to alleviate the discomfort and return to full functioning, while, AT THE SAME TIME, accepting the touch of ill-health as a gift from Me… a means of spiritual growth. This sounds conflicting, but, mystically, it is not.