Strange people I meet while working: The happily cursed

Tuesday was a day like any other, I arrived at work semi-late and already exhausted from the morning chaos that inevitably happens when you have to get four kids ready and out the door by 7:30. I went about my usual routine of stocking the shelves in the drawing room and sorting the mail. The first couple of hours  brought no surprises or change. Patients came in with the usual attitude of reluctant obedience, they rolled up their sleeves and allowed me to perform my duty, then hastened off to better places without passing on much more than a polite salutation. It was somewhere in the middle of this monotony that I had the pleasure of meeting the young girl I now refer to affectionately as the happily cursed.

She was a girl of homely appearance, short and round in the body, dull, lifeless locks of dishwater-colored hair hung in an unflattering bob around her swollen face. Her eyes were rather small and her nose quite  wide and her complexion was covered in scars, and fiery rashes. As I called her name and waited for her to settle herself into the drawing chair, I secretly hoped that whatever she had was not contagious.

 She warned me straight off that her arms were covered in scar tissue and that I should probably skip straight to a hand vein if I wanted to be successful at finding a blood source. After getting a quick look at the thick red scarring on her arms, I began to prepare the equipment needed to draw a hand vein.

"Did you have a skin graft?" I asked, in morbid curiosity.

"No." She answered cheerfully, "I have a blood disease that causes these rashes and boils and leaves my skin scarred like this."

I instantly felt ashamed at my bluntness and offered a compassionate apology for her condition.

"Oh, don't be sorry, I'm not. I am happy with my trials. I am glad I have this disease." She announced with conviction.

I was taken aback by her choice of words. I have in the past, had many people in my drawing chair with terrible diseases and even terminal illnesses which still maintain a positive attitude, but never have I heard anyone say they were 'happy' with their condition and certainly I had never had a patient profess to be 'glad' of their trial.

"Well, Its good that you have a positive attitude about what you must endure." I said, hoping she would elaborate and impart to me some great wisdom she has gained from her experience.

"Oh, I endure it happily. Sure I have these terrible sores on my body, but my condition also comes with a stronger spirit and closeness to god. They call my kind of illness  'Job's disease' for short. The name describes the boils and rashes but also the strong conviction of faith that my kind all seem to possess."

I was impressed. This simple girl was an answer to my prayer. She had imparted to me in those few minutes a piece of great wisdom that a lifetime of sunday school hadn't been able to do. She stayed and talked to me for a few minutes after I had drawn her few vials of blood. She told me about her sisters who also had the disease and her older sister who had escaped the gene somehow. I marveled at her very apparent acceptance and lack of jealousy or self-pity. She was a bright soul.

When she left, I couldn't help but feel a sense of enlightenment. I contemplated her words and recalled in my mind the story of Job, who the lord loved and yet allowed satan to try with every imaginable affliction. I thought of my own trials and for a moment wished that I had a stronger spirit, a stronger resolve in god and faith, even if it meant enduring a terrible physical ailment. But then the words of that sweet girl echoed again in my head, 'I am happy with my trials' and I realized that I don't have physical trials. I am not handicapped or covered in boils. These are not the trials God has given me. My trials are different, more subtle perhaps, but why should I not be happy and strong in faith just as she is.

We all have trials. I have flaws in character and mood that are debilitating just as a physical handicap might be, others struggle with weight or even just a crooked nose. But there is one thing we are all given in equal amounts, and that is our choices. We can choose to wallow in our misery, and let our trials handicap our lives or we can embrace who we are and allow our hearts to be penetrated with the light of god. We can choose to be happy even in the face of our darkest adversity, because some part of us knows that this trial is for our spiritual growth.

Oh how I pray that I might transform my attitude as this sweet, happily cursed girl has done. That I might soon be able to brightly declare, if only to myself, that I too am happy with my curse. Even if it is as simple as fulfilling my obligation to work on an ordinary Tuesday.