Being Well When We're Ill

Marva Dawn has an insider's view of the many spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social, and physical difficulties encountered by people with chronic illness and disabilities. She knows from experience how to nurture hope in spite of infirmity. Filled with insight and practical help, each chapter of Being Well When We're Ill focuses on one particular kind of struggle, such as worry, guilt, the loss of meaning, or the loss of confidence and trust that God is present and personally loving. Each chapter details one or more appropriate ''finds'' - spiritual resources, emotional supports, intellectual answers, or practical solutions - that enable a person with infirmities to persevere through them and to be well in spite of them. For each issue she explores, such as loss of dreams, loneliness, physical pain, depression, ingratitude, side effects and more, Dawn includes discussions of biblical texts - not only texts that help lament losses but texts that bring wholeness. Readers will find themselves companioned in their sufferings and encouraged with new ways to surmount them.