If you suffer from chronic illness or know someone who is, then reading Being Well (Even When You’re Sick) by Elana Rosenbaum is a beautiful gift.
Even if you’re fortunate enough to evade illness, you’re reading this means you’ve probably suffered at some point in your life. Maybe you’re even struggling now.
Sometimes when we’re on that arduous journey towards healing and spiritual growth, it can feel relentless like the steep hill will never level out.
We’re beyond tired. We’re emotionally depleted. We’re fresh out of hope. We may even believe we’ve been forgotten or our prayers have gone unanswered.
Being Well for me was like an energy bar or a gulp of ice cold water for the journey. It won’t cure your ails, but it’s fuel.
This passage gave me a burst of spiritual energy. Rosenbaum’s colleague, Phyllis Pilgrim, lived in a Japanese prison camp with her family. Rosenbaum says, “To survive and remain emotionally intact, her mother told her and her little brother to see something beautiful, say something beautiful, and do something beautiful every day.”
I think this is a wonderful way to infuse divine love and spiritual acts of compassion and kindness while giving us the ability to control what we can control. So dear reader, this is my request for you to do today.
Practice doing one thing that’s beautiful, saying one thing that’s beautiful and opening your eyes to seeing something beautiful.
Here’s mine for today:
I see the beauty of my son sleeping. I tell a friend how grateful I am for her friendship. I make water beads with my son.
Now it’s your turn.
I’ll leave you with this poem called, “Celebration,” by Svein Myrengfrom Being Well:
“I want to celebrate chaos.
I want to celebrate old worn-out cars,
Broken tiles, ever-shifting
Schedules, misplaced letters,
And nettles next to flowerbeds;
To celebrate toilets out of order,
As well as friends who will remind me
That mistakes are good, failure a success,
And that a pure heart may prevail
In the non-end.
I want to celebrate being left alone,
or assailed by talkers,
(or, disturbing others’ quiet).
I want to celebrate gentle smiles,
Good intentions, and, especially,
One step after the other.
“If arrow number 100 hits the target,
how can you say the first 99 were failures?”
