To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde
Over the years people have often commented, “God must be wanting you to learn something from this.” I have never had an apt reply since inwardly I would recoil feeling like a poor student who had to keep on repeating the same class since she couldn’t pass. I would sometimes feel like there was an inference that all I needed to do is look deep enough into my soul and I would learn the appropriate lesson so that I could move on. I really don’t believe I have this illness in order for me to learn some special lessons. I believe I am sick for the obvious reason – suffering exists and therefore, why not me? However, that is not to say that God hasn’t been using these difficult years to help me sort the necessary from the unnecessary, the important from the unimportant, to clarify what it means to really live rather than just exist. I am currently reading a book called Beethoven Factor and the writer is a psychologist who has had his own share of serious suffering and from his own practice and research, he has concluded that “It seems that our lives may be torn apart so that we will learn not only how to weave them back together again but to cherish more every moment of our gift of life.” My concern is that just as I used to excel at writing tests at school and then promptly forget the material, I could forget what I have been learning when I become well. As I dare to imagine what life could be like when I become well, I want to live a life described by this same author as “more authentic, real and intensely meaningful.” I want to be that rare person who does far more than merely exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment