Gratitude

This morning I realized again how grateful I am for who I've become and how I've grown and what I've learned. I am no longer mired in desperate dysfunction, trying so hard to look on the bright side- I am happy with no striving. I believe people when they self-disclose and don't expend the juice of my life trying to second-guess them or figure out what they should do- I trust people to live their own lives under the benevolent hand of God.

I trace these changes back to my illness, more specifically to the unrelenting faithfulness of my illness. Had it not been for the discipline of pain, fear, and dissatisfaction, I could have spent my entire life miserable and called it happiness, never knowing.

I have wondered over the years quietly and vocally, why me? Why do I have to suffer? Why did all the consequences fall on me? Why did all this happen to me? I received an answer years ago- "It has been granted to you." I got that some at the time but I receive it even more now. It has been granted to me to be free. It has been granted to me to be happy. It has been granted to me to be at peace. And it has been granted to me by the very means which might have destroyed me- the consequences of evil in my life- relentlessly held by God's severe mercy.

When I think about this severe mercy, I see my illness is an angel. She is large and beautiful and she is weeping over me, holding me together, weeping me from death into life. Her four decades of labor have not been in vain. Nothing less than this most desperate kindness would have been able to wield this suffering, this weapon of destruction, in my service.

I never expected to live to see my illness and I part ways. I never expected pleasure. And yet here I am. As we part, I wish to commend her to you. She has been faithful and true beyond all hoping.

After everything and everything, I am not disappointed.