How hard it is to slow down and let the healing happen when the very sickness is a fear of slowing down, of not being able to function as well as we could, of paralysis of will. Healing is most impossible when we cannot forget the sickness long enough for healing to start. Rarely do we realize the healing power that is going on inside us. We do not notice it because we mistake it for something else, we mistake it for an evil. If we have learned to enter into prayer, then we see with new eyes and hear with new ears. And what we perceive is that what we previously thought was surely some scourge of Satan in our lives, is in fact the healing hand of God leading us through the fire of suffering in order to purify and heal what only suffering can heal.
—from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//