Today I was making inpatient rounds at Hospital Cristo Rei when I overheard, “I’m so glad God allowed me to contract leprosy, because it’s only here in treatment that I learned about Jesus. All those ‘healthy’ people in my town – they still know nothing of God’s mercy.” Such a stunning statement! Our normal, visceral response to disease is to imagine the pain, disability, even embarrassment that results. Leprosy, like HIV or cancer, only magnifies these sentiments on a logarithmic scale.
And yet this mature individual moved well beyond the visceral towards a profoundly insightful perspective. That disease could somehow be good for us is a provocative statement. Yet with consideration we might well agree that from illness can result a healthy humility, respect, and even gratefulness for what function and time on earth we have remaining to our live.
But exceptional indeed is the discovery that extreme adversity, from any number of threats, may draw one closer to God. Exception – but not rare. Jesus disciple, Paul, suffered immense physical affliction, and yet documents in Corinthians 12:9 “Jesus said to me ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Would that we all come to be nurtured by the truth that our deepest trial may result in our closest encounters with our Creator.