health & heart

"If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

thankfully, that quote is not true.  but it makes me smile to think of it. =)
but if the quote *was* true, i wouldn't have much lately!  i won't describe my weird stomach sickness that started last monday (and is much better now, but still not completely better); it was really really not fun.  have you ever sat down to a meal and thought, really sincerely, "thank you that i can eat this food" ?  that's how i feel lately.  i am thankful when i ride my bike, that i can.  i am thankful that i can physically get up and get to school to teach my classes (last week there was several days i couldn't).  being thankful for normal healthy abilities are not something that most people usually think about.  and once i'm actually recovered fully, i probably won't think about it all that much either.  i hope that isn't totally true though, because i feel like a much more thankful person lately (in some ways only...but i will not change the topic now).  at least, i feel much more grateful for the basic things in life that i can do.  there are plenty of people who can't do these things, or do them with difficulty (which i am experiencing a little of lately).  and if i couldn't actually do them, then i couldn't be here (a little bit scary to think about while sick and not able to do everything).

i've been thinking about healing too, in general.  sometimes we are not healed (from physical sickness or from other things).  currently i am not fully healed (from physical sickness and from other things).  healing is often a process.  it's not instant.  so in the midst of the healing process (or lack thereof), what should the focus be on?  not on what is *not* happening.  definitely not helpful.  other than that, i'm not sure of the answer to this yet.  maybe on my heart, not on the circumstances.  because my heart is what *can* change, because He (the unchangeable One, no matter what the circumstances) is able to help it change, even when it seems nothing else will ever heal or be different.  He can change circumstances, and He can heal.  but will He?  maybe not.  and i don't like that.  but maybe He wants us (me and Him) to focus on what can change, which is my heart, which can't be done without Him.  i only just started to really think about this.  and i don't like it.  i want Him to change the things that *I* want Him to change. i want Him to provide and heal in the ways that i think of.  i want Him to comfort me my way, by fixing the things i think are wrong.

"I, even I, am he who comforts you...
Yet you have feared continually every day."
Isaiah 51:12, 13