Inspirational Reading

This TSW process can tend to break one down on so many levels, making it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes, and hard to not fall into the depths of depression.  I’ve found that reading inspirational books have gotten me through the rough times and have changed my whole perspective on this situation and life in general.  I just started reading this book called When Your World Falls Apart – Seeing Past the Pain of the Present by a pastor named Dr. David Jeremiah (what an intense title eh? lol) and he talks all about his trials and tribulations of going through cancer and the lessons that it taught him, as well as stories from others going through rough times.  He likes to call these trials “disruptive moments”.

This passage, quoted from a British journalist named Malcolm Muggeridge stuck out to me: “As an old man, looking back on one’s life, it’s one of the things that strikes you most forcibly – that the only thing that’s taught one anything is suffering. Not success, not happiness, not anything like that.  The only thing that really teaches one what life’s about – the joy of understanding, the joy of coming in contact with what life really signifies – is suffering, affliction.”

The lessons that I have learned going through this TSW experience as well as having Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer a few years back are:

• That my body is truly my temple and I have to treat it with respect and love, and really pay attention what I’m putting into/on it. That this is a wake up call to always treat my body right, always striving to be as healthy as possible.
• That my body is amazing at healing and repairing on its own.
• To have more empathy and compassion for those suffering because I know what it’s like to suffer.
• I’ve become more spiritual in this process, just really holding onto my faith like I never have in the past.
• That I am so much more than just my external appearance.
• And last but not least patience, patience, patience.

*Feel free to comment on what lessons were learned in your times of suffering ❤

-Jen