We’ve been practicing a particular aspect of our marriage vows this month, taking care of each other as we trade being under the weather. First Derek and Tommy had the flu, then Tommy and I had a wicked cold, and now Derek’s home from work again and Tommy was up all night with teething pains. We are so tired of being sick! In the midst of all this, I tend to forget to be grateful for the small blessings: We haven’t all been sick at the same time. I went grocery shopping this week and have lots of tempting healthy foods in my fridge. Our amazing babysitter washed all of the dishes yesterday AND stuffed Tommy’s clean diapers AND picked up his room and the living room. (She’s one in a million!) And these tough times are training us to be more Christlike.
Edith Shaeffer says it so much better than I can:
“When illness hits we should remember that this period of time is part of the whole of life. This is not just a non-time to be shoved aside, but a portion of time that counts. It is part of the well person’s life, as well as part of the sick person’s life. “In sickness and in health” is a promise made, it seems to me, to recognize that the time which sickness takes is part of the married life, part of the family life…The opportunity to do something practical about making your family remember their sicknesses with a feeling that yours was the “best hospital in the world” is very real, and becomes a challenge that gives purpose to some of the drudgery of changing beds, struggling with bedpans, cleaning up the sickroom floor, or thinking up something comforting to do. It is a time when each of us have the chance to be practical about the command in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”” (What is a Family?)