These Beloved Broken Bodies

Blessed Reflections of Days Spent Dying on the Couch

What started as a small tickle in the back of the throat erupted into nine full days of high fever, terrible coughing, searing sore throat, and sleepless nights begging God for mercy.

I can say without exaggeration, this little row with this particular bug was a beat down like I’ve never had. Every year I have my annual couch session with some sort of sickness, but it’s no more than a couple days of complaints and then I’m back to the races.

This was a category all its own.

Ibuprofen and Tylenol did little to bring down the fevers. An albuterol inhaler, prescription cough suppressant, extra strength Mucinex, and Robitussin at times seemed to exacerbate the coughing fits rather than reduce them. Swallowing felt like drinking hot lava over and over, burning from the back of my throat down to my belly.

One has plenty of time to reflect on life when constrained to a couch for over a week and my mind went in every direction imaginable until I found an anchor and settled in.

I’ve been immersed in a seventeenth century French Jesuit’s writings over this last year. One might summarize Jean-Pierre Caussade’s thoughts in this singular idea: total abandonment to God in every and all circumstances is the pathway to joy.

For Caussade, blessings and bitter burdens are of equal value in the sovereign economy of God, for He allows all such things for the transformation of our souls. The one who abandons their will unto the will of God is assured of a secret and holy joy missed by many.

So, with a fabricated French accent in my head, I determined that I would heed the counsel of this ancient spiritual director. I would submit to God through this ordeal as an act of sacrificial worship, and in so doing, prayed for insight and illumination.

In 1373, a thirty year old woman named Julian of Norwich fell nearly fatally ill.

She had prayed for three graces: to understand Christ’s passion more vividly, to suffer a bodily sickness in youth as a means of purgation and deeper union with God, and to receive three wounds—contrition, compassion, and willful longing for God.

Over the course of the next week she became so ill a priest actually stood ready to perform last rites, but in her fever dreams God granted her a series of sixteen “shewings” or revelations.

The content moved through vivid, almost cinematic visions of Christ’s Passion: the crown of thorns, the drying and bleeding of his body, interwoven with theological understanding she received in the midst of the visions.

She was given insight into the nature of sin, divine love, the relationship between God’s wrath (or rather its absence) and human suffering, and the famous image of all creation as a small thing “the size of a hazelnut” held in God’s hand.

The visions also included what she called the parable of the lord and the servant, which became central to her mature theology of sin and grace decades later.

After the final showing, her symptoms reversed and she recovered fully.

I’m not gonna lie. With Caussaude as my counselor and a determined heart to surrender to God in my sickness, I was kind of hoping for a Julian of Norwich experience. I was ready for divine insight and the lofty heights of whatever heaven God would so chose to catch me up into.

But, alas, I remained on the couch, foggy headed and frustrated that my height of revelation would rise no further than an acute awareness that I was not getting better.

And so, with Caussaude echoing in my year, I’d offer the frustration as worship, the fever as worship, and the whole experience as an opportunity to thank God for it.

While not divine and lofty in register, through that, light rays of revelation penetrated the fog.

While I’m glad to be well enough, and clear headed enough today to write this little post, I must say, I am more grateful for this bout with the brokenness of my body than I could have expected.

The Spirit did grant insight and wondrous meditation. It may not have penetrated the mystic wonders of history, but indeed, buoyed my soul into God’s good and eternal truths.

I offer you these simple, but profound epiphanies from the beloved brokenness of my body and prayer.

Oh how frail these bodies are.

A tiny, invisible intruder penetrated my defense system and took up residence in my upper respiratory system. As it made copy after copy of itself, it outpaced everything my body sent at it to exorcise it from my being. The result: something of infinitesimal size and mindless in its capacities wrecked me for nine solid days.

How humbling it is that a pathogen can paralyze a grown man for over a week and there is absolutely nothing to be done about it. Despite the miracles of modern medicine, multiple doctors shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, it appears to be viral so you just have to wait it out.”

We are helpless.

We are so fragile.

The lion’s share of us live most of our days gallivanting about, impervious to the million dangers we face. While this particular meditation might lead one adopt a hypochondriac-germaphobe perspective on the world, that isn’t necessary.

For the most part, most of our immunes systems quickly take care of a million dangerous particles that can kill us in an instant.

That awareness is so very humbling.

What a fever and a relentless cough do is remind one of our frailty. Sickness like this is the ultimate deliverer of humility, reminding us that these bodies so easily break. Our only hope for life is everlasting life and the resurrection, and that is a sweet, sweet meditation for the Christian.

To feel the fractures of another.

This was more bitter than sweet as far as realizations. With each passing day, as the fever stayed steady, my mind drifted from its self pitiful state to people I love who live in chronic pain, fatigue, and sickness.

I thought of the millions of humans weakened by chemo therapy. I prayed for people in my church whose immune systems are literally destroying them.

This sickness produced a sweet, if not terribly sad, empathy for the suffering of other beloved broken bodies. I gave thanks over and over for the many Christians who I know who continue to worship and trust God, and the only healing they can really hold on to is the resurrection.

To sit in my brief week of suffering and think about the supernatural strength so many Christians exhibit as they deal with chronic health issues birthed a resolve to give glory all the more for those chosen to carry such terrible crosses.

Gratitude for basic health.

Wisdom of Sirach 30:15 says, “Health and vigor are better than all gold, and a strong body than immense wealth.”

The first night I slept through the night without a fever was overwhelmingly joyful. I woke up, sinuses stuffed full, eyes glued shut with gunk, lungs still on fire, but I had slept a solid six hours without waking up.

It’s hard to put words to the gratitude I felt.

Basic health is a miracle.

I do not want to take it for granted.

Every day that we exist in bodies that function at a relative level of vibrance and flourishing should be a day of highest praise. Only when one has had their health taken can this type of thanksgiving be offered to God.

A normally functioning body is an absolute gift and to be treasured. General health is a source of gratitude after you’ve been sick, and I hope to hold on to it long after this episode with this bug is over.

Hope and expectation for the resurrection.

I thought a ton about my death.

Yes, I’m a bit dramatic and extreme when I get sick, but this practice of memento mori (death remembrance) was also intentional on my part.

Someday there is a sickness or circumstance coming from which I will not heal.

That’s why the resurrection is what I let my attention dwell on.

I practiced dying.

Imagining that this was the terminal illness that would send me to be with the King. Though my psychology and every fiber of my being wanted to resist such terror, it really focused my attention on what I say I believe: this body must be buried in the ground and raised in Christ.

My beloved broken body reminded me that its whole and only hope is resurrection.

This week, if you’re healthy, give thanks for the miracle that your body is.

Pray for someone you know suffers with chronic and terminal illness. Visit them and tell them you love them. Honor their noble call, for the cross they carry is terrible, but their reward will be great.

Finally, remember your death. Think about it. Practice it. Then, when these beloved, broken bodies make their final departure your soul will be well practiced and received into eternity with joy and passion.