The Gift of illness - a strange thought!

Julian of Norwich (1343-1413)

 

Julian was a Benedictine Nun despite the name. She named herself after Saint Julian who was the Patron Saint a church close to where she lived in Norwich. Julian was probably the first successful woman author. Julian is certainly one of the most popular English Mystics.

Image of Julian Of Norwich

These are some of the Revelations from her Book  Divine Love
I am going to give you her basic premises in there simplest form. Her theology is too a large extent based on her mystical experiences.

She believed God gave her a three fold revelation  she refers to revelation as a gift.

1.  The first "gift"was a deep recollection of his passion. Which I guess we would translate passion for love in our terms. This is fairly straight forward as a deep understanding of God's love for her.
2. The second "gift"was a bodily sickness. Now this to 21st century Christian would seem to be quite wrong. How could the sickness come from God. I may be able to understand God using the sickness that nearly brought her death. But to suggest that God afflicted her so he could make a point, I find  a little difficult.
3. The third "gift"is the 3 Wounds in her life. The wound of true Contrition; the wound of loving compassion; and the wound of longing with my will for God.  These would seem self explanatory! Although why use the term wound?

At  30 she had a life threatening illness, during which she was read the last rites ready for her imminent death. She was however healed and went on to live for another 34 years. During this experience she received an vision of God placing something small in her hand. It is classically stated as a hazelnut but that is irrelevant to her understanding of the vision.

In this she saw three properties in the Hazel Nut:

1. God made it
2. God loves it
3. God preserves it

This week and this reading have coincided with some events in my life that have brought questions, but few answers.
Last weekend a guy we have known socially for a few years suddenly had a small heart attack and then a massive one in the ambulance on the way to the hospital which killed him. I suppose the first shock for me was he is only slightly older than me and seemed pretty healthy. I guess I am confronted with my mortality and I am entering a life zone where  the death of my peer group will become more common.  This is part of the aging process but it seems premature.


The second major for me was the diagnosis of a close friend with cancer. My Friend has had cancer of this type before and received a miraculous healing from God, 10 years ago.  The diagnosis presents itself as inoperable and by my friends own admission he is entering  into miracle territory. As I write I am unsure where I sit with healing. It is not that I have no experience with healing and healing prayer. I have prayed for people and seen them healed. I seen members of my family healed in a way that can only be God. I have also seen many who are not. Healing can seem and feel quite random!!

My wife has a debilitating Auto Immune disease that is incurable............. but God. I pray for her  regularly as part of my devotions. I believe there will come a time when she will be healed it has unfortunately not been yet. As I with others gather around my fiend with cancer to uphold in his time of need. I know he will be saturated in prayer and we will see what happens.

I must say I find it difficult to see illness in any of these cases as a gift!

Yet I can agree with these 3 principles:

1. God made it
2. God loves it
3. God preserves it

There are so many questions and not so many answers, but I still believe in the power of prayer.