Illness Is a Gift from God

Every time I hear the phrase “health is the most important thing in life,” I answer that it isn’t true.

The most important thing in life is Faith. With Faith we can do anything, even bear the most horrible illness that may come our way. And I say it with authority, because I have been chronically ill for more than 15 years, and I always tell God that the greatest thing he has given me in life, after Faith, is Illness.

And you may ask me why I say this. Because illness is a bit as if God were standing behind the door of the room of our conscience and our actions (which we sometimes keep a little, or quite a lot, distant from Him) and began to knock (with aches, with suffering, with illnesses that may be more or less serious). And we have two choices: either we open the door to God so that He can come in and teach us to live as true Christians along the path our Lord Jesus Christ left us, or we keep it closed and believe that with our own strength (or powers that do not come from Him) we can fight or live with our illness.

Only God will give us the strength to bear illness and everything it brings with it (waiting rooms, tests, treatments, discomfort, malaise, pain, operations and so on). But above all, illness will help us live prepared for when He calls us into his Divine Presence.

Because I remind you here, in capital letters, that “DEATH IS LIFE” for a Christian who has known how to live on this earth walking the path our Lord Jesus Christ taught us.

How many families do we know who, faced with the illness of a loved one, kneel before God again after a long time of not doing so? I have known people who have told me they thought they were all-powerful and that their lives changed for the better (and made them humble) after an illness, or worse still, the illness of a child. I have known people who matured and/or found meaning in their existence after their own illness or that of a loved one.

That is why I say illness is a gift God can give us, even if it sounds crazy. So my message goes to all the sick in Venezuela and the whole world, the less serious and the most serious, so that you may know that you are the Lord’s favorites.

And that illness is a caress God allows so that we can be closer to Him. And when we feel great pain, we only need to close our eyes and say (or shout) to God with all our heart: “My God, I offer you this so that you may purify me of all the evil I may have caused in my past life, or of the good I have failed to do,” “Lord, renew my Faith and help me be closer to You every day,” “Help me, Lord, to seek out those who can lead me to live my Faith better,” “Help me understand that I am Nothing without You.”

This is not a fool’s consolation, as some may be thinking. God may knock at the door of ALL of us with illness at some moment in our lives; and the joy (even if one is dying) of opening the door to that merciful God, who is only waiting for us to run to him to ask forgiveness and start again, is beyond comparison with anything on this earth.

And to those who love to repeat that Health is the most important thing in life, I say that they don’t know what they are saying. Only Faith is necessary to live; only Faith has made it possible for us to turn pain into joy and death into Life.

How great it is to have Faith and to live as men and women of Faith! Let us not leave God outside the room when he knocks at the door with illness! He will be there with us, very close, when we are suffering most! And He will give us the Fortitude we need to carry that Cross with immense joy!