Healthy and Healed

2023 was an epically bad year for my health. I will not bore you with the play-by-play of my body’s breakdown, but suffice it to say that apart from a glorious reprieve during the month of September, it was one injury, ailment, and illness after another. Though thankfully nothing was serious, I missed out on friends’ visits, outdoor adventures, and even Thanksgiving dinner – not to mention the loss of small daily joys like going of a walk and enjoying foods I normally love. The year came to close with a bang (literally and metaphorically) that left me mentally and physically exhausted, and with a broken toe to boot.

But at long last, after yesterday’s visit to the orthopedist, the last of my 2023 maladies is officially behind me. I am healthy, finally! So it is no surprise that I find myself drawn to Simon’s mother-in-law.* Like many healed by Jesus, we know precious little about her: she was in bed with a fever, she is cured by Jesus, and she immediately begins to tend to her guests. It doesn’t seem like she spends any time looking backwards at her days in bed. She is healed; she can help.

Meanwhile, I’m still in defensive posture, protecting my energy, my tattered immune system, and my bruised body at all costs.  I’m so worried that I’ll get sick or hurt again that I can’t even see the needs of others around me, needs that I might be able to tend to now that I am healthy again.

Maybe this is the difference between healthy and healed: my body has recovered, but my spirit has not. The antibiotics and ice packs have done their job; the work that remains requires something different – prayer, journaling, helping my soul find its place and feel at home in my body again. Or maybe the healing is in the doing; maybe, like Simon’s mother-in-law, I just need to get up and reach out my hands to help.