We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

3049994994_a6d277488c

Approaching Chronic Illness with Wisdom

CNN posted this article on what to say and what not to say when someone you love is suffering with chronic illness. Sometimes our best intentions cause more harm than good, and we need to approach people in pain with a great deal of wisdom and sensitivity.

From the article:

When people we care about are in pain, we want to offer words of encouragement, help ease their pain and motivate them to stay hopeful.

Unfortunately, our words of cheer can often be misinterpreted by those who live with chronic illness. Rather than feeling supported, our words can evoke the feeling of “she doesn’t understand my life at all.” This can permanently affect our relationships.

Image by chispita_666 Sourced via Flickr

 

Category:
Tags: ,

Related Reading

Kingdom Centeredness

A Silent Center white knuckles cling against peace and cries for release into chaos flying, centrifugal to death in attempt to salvage human breath for breathing,   through peeling purge that burns away flesh to white bone singed and aching   for skin new to inhale holy fire once again, until the timely scourge of…

The Revolutionary Mission of the Church

Last week Greg tweeted the following: YES! “[T]he mission of the church is to participate in a drama that has a cross for its climax…” K. Vanhoozer  This quote from Vanhoozer summarizes a theme that is crucial to the warfare view of the church that Greg holds. The drama of the church is a continuation of…

Topics:

Living With a Kingdom Consciousness

What Is the Kingdom of God? I want to begin by asking, “What is the kingdom of God?” This may seem like a rather obvious question. We all know what the Kingdom of God is, right? But see, this is precisely the problem. It’s why (I shall argue) the Kingdom of God is largely absent…

Our Insatiable Hunger

The only kind of life animals care about is biological. If their basic physical needs for food and shelter are met, they’re satisfied. Humans also want their basic physical needs met, of course, but that isn’t enough. We hunger for more. Not only do we want to be alive, we want to feel fully alive.…

Put on the Armor of God

The whole of the Christian life is an act of war against the enemy as we follow Jesus in storming the gates of hell (See post.) No passage better illustrates this than Paul’s metaphor of spiritual armor from Ephesians 6. He writes that Christians are to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength…

Doesn’t Peter Suggest Our Suffering is God’s Will? (podcast)

Greg wrestles suffering out of God’s will.  Episode 662 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0662.mp3