Dear Friends,

 

So, here I sit minus my gall-bladder (well, most of it – the surgeon found me a bit of a challenge, and told me the day after that quite frankly, he wished he’d never met me!) feeling a lot better but forbidden to work for another week. So just a short letter this month, mainly to say thank you for so many cheering cards and get-well messages, and beautiful flowers. It makes such a difference to feel supported by love and prayers at a time like this, and I am so grateful for your thoughtfulness.

 

I must admit that the opportunity to take things easy for a bit, ‘put my feet up’ and do as I’m told, has come as something of an unexpected treat. I’ve read some good books, finished a bit of knitting, and at last had the opportunity to stick into an album the photos from my visit to India earlier this year – as well as wonderful time spent ‘in vacant or in pensive mood’, simply lying still, perhaps listening to music or enjoying silence. There are blessings in being, as old-fashioned prayers used to put it, ‘laid aside’, and I think I am learning some lessons from it all. Time spent being ‘passive’ rather than ‘active’ bears its own fruits.

 

 The experience of pain and illness certainly gives life a different perspective. As one of my ‘get-well’ cards put it:

 

            ‘When you’re feeling poorly

            the world’s a different place;

            things you cope with every day

            are somehow hard to face.’

 

As I write this, I am aware that so many of you live with this reality every day, either because of a debilitating illness, from which there may be no instant cure, or because the years so often take their toll in diminishing physical strength. I have been thinking of the courage, patience and stoicism which so many of you have had to learn to cope with your problems, and I am filled with admiration and humility.

 

The words of a prayer come to mind:

 

            I asked God for strength that I might achieve;

            I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

            I asked for health that I might do greater things;

            I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

            I asked for riches that I might be happy;

            I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

            I asked for power that I might have people’s praise.

            I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

            I got nothing that I asked for,

            But everything I hoped for;

            I am among all people most richly blessed.

 

I am, thank God, getting stronger every day, and I look forward to being back with you soon, fitter and, I pray, a little wiser.

 

With love,

Rosey