Sometimes I sound more together than I really am.  There are days it takes all my grit to keep living with hope and not default to focussing on my own pain, whinging all the while, or trying to escape it even just for a moment.

I don’t want to die and I don’t want to miss out on a thing.

That said, I am well aware that my pain could be another’s gain. I wonder in your life if your pain could become someone else’s gain.

We can choose to try and run from our pain or we can choose to embrace it and take the view that even in our suffering, maybe others can benefit.

This week at the Australian Open tennis, a commercial was aired [via http://www.curemnd.org.au].  It starred tennis players bringing awareness to the MND/ALS disease and the need to find a cure.  I love that!

Some say that MND is incurable but it’s not, we just haven’t found the cure yet.

I know it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of ourselves when we go through difficult times, but if we can move beyond that, the potential to help others is enormous. 

For me, that looks like doing whatever I can do to not only seek my own healing, and not only dwell on my prognosis, but also, to wholeheartedly support the quest to find a cure.

It’s not unique but it can be hard.  I see people all over the world deliberately putting the needs and safety of others before themselves even when I’m sure they have their own issues to deal with.

Most people with MND today realise that the cure may not come in their lifetime but what they do today could indeed save the lives of thousands tomorrow.

Like many diseases that were once incurable, a cure starts with awareness, that brings funding, that provides research.  And dare I say it:  our attention depends on the number of people the disease kills and who those people are.

So yes, while there are days I wonder “where is my healing?” I am more likely thinking about how good a cure would be.

I don’t think the discovery of a cure is any less a miracle and gift from God than what can and does take place in an individual’s life.

When I see doctors in third world countries operating on the blind through removing cataracts, it’s a cure but it is also a miracle for the person who can see again.

When I witness children who are infected with H.I.V. surviving through medicine, it is miraculous.

I get excited when through medicine, counselling, surgery, and science, things that were once impossible become possible.  It blesses me to see mankind trusting God to show them His mind on things and where disease once stole life, now millions can experience wholeness.

Just this week I read that according to The Lancet, in Australia 86 per cent of people with breast cancer are still alive five years after diagnosis.  This is thanks to more funding allowing for more research and early detection.

In our waiting and in our suffering, let’s always remember that there is someone else we could help, there is a cause we could further, a hand we could lend.

Waiting with you,
Phil