mgpcpastor's blog

In this month’s Briefing Rachel Pettett writes about her experience with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), now in a third year.
The article is not available online, although you can purchase a pdf copy of the magazine.
As Rachel writes about how the illness has impacted on her life, aspirations, sense of self and relationship with God I didn’t read anything that struck me as new, so I’m not recommending it on that basis. What encouraged me was that she wrote about basic elements of Christian life and growth and how her illness has caused her to grow and mature in them. We are blessed when those who are tried more profoundly than the rest of us bring a good testimony. It helps us to persevere in our own struggles.
There is a trend in some areas of western Christianity to equate God’s blessing in illness with physical healing. The biblical notion of God’s blessing in illness is to grow more deeply into our relationship with Him.

I particularly appreciated her point about the temporary nature of our struggles:

This illness causes me to yearn for heaven in a real and unique way, and on the days I can really grasp its reality, it puts the pains of this life into perspective, In my life before CFS I found it so easy to become engulfed in daily comings and goings. The slowness of my life now, the absence of that busyness, has helped me to pull my head out of life i this world, and better understand these four words: this life is temporary. And much comfort is found there (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; Philippians 3:20)

From Give Up Your Life: When You’re Sick from The Briefing, October 2010.