"But things slowly change. Ulcers heal, the scars disappear; first the physical ones, and later, much more slowly, the emotional ones. You feel strength again and old friends and old circles begin to open up again.
Health returns but it is different. Some of the old self-confidence is gone, replaced by a new sense of vulnerability and relativity that is immensely freeing.
You realize more clearly what is gift and what is earned. You know that you, on your own, cannot guarantee your own health, nor your attractiveness and desirability in love and friendship.
Stripped naked, weakened, and greatly humbled, you stop fighting, first because you are defeated, but later, when strength and resources return, because you realize that there is no reason to fight.
Life, health, love, it is all pure gift! You take less for granted and your old need to perform, to achieve, to dominate, to possess and impress, to win by effort what can only be received as gift, has been dealt a blow. It is painful, but freeing: painful because you realize that there is so little you can do; freeing because you realize that there is so little you have to do.
You begin to beg for conversion (even as you sense how difficult it is) because you would want to transvaluate all your values and priorities, your whole self, and begin life anew."
(Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI)
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