I doubt that anyone forgets the moment when a doctor tells them that they are never going to recover from the illness that brought them in and led to all those diagnostic tests. It’s terminal and it’s only a matter of time before you die. Add in the words “There’s no known cure, and we don’t even know what causes it” and the verdict seems absolute: you’re without hope.
Yet my experience over the five and a half years since these words were spoken to me has not felt tragic; to the contrary, I have discovered a surprising upside to the de facto death sentence.
I suppose that it is a blessing that we go through life not knowing when or how we are going to die. One of the first steps toward exiting childhood and becoming an adult is the realization that you, too, are going to die. But, at least for me, that inevitability was always suppressed in my conscious mind, and I operated as if death were not only uncertain as to date and manner, but somehow so unthinkable that it might not even happen. Or at least so far off that there’s no point in thinking about it.
That abruptly changed with the diagnosis, of course. But after the initial shock wore off a day or two later, I began to be astounded at the ways my life changed for the better.
here.
Image courtesy of Thomas Lifson.
Jesus Christ is King
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