Week 2, 2012: Food for the sick

I'm thankful that I don't get sick often. Once or twice a year is my personal quota. A year can pass by without me getting sick at all.

Doesn't sickness remind us of our mortality? For instance, I want to read a book the entire night, for example, but I can't because of the nagging, throbbing headache. I want to finish schoolwork, but I'm distracted by the mucoid nasal discharges running down my upper lip. And I have a hard time dealing with the fever, a perennial reminder that somewhere in my body an offending agent is lodged—a virus, I'm certain—multiplying by the second, and my immune system is doing its best to win the war.

I had systemic viral infection—the common flu—this week, but I can't complain. God gave me the chance to savor good food, thanks to family, friends, and mentors who treated me. I realized, for example, that pumpkin soup tastes delicious even when I have nasal congestion. Either that soup was so overpoweringly flavorful, or that my nasal passages were so big some flavor still managed to allow some form of taste.

I'm on the way to recovery now. Thank You, Lord, for the healing.