Rebekah Teuscher’s Reviews > Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness > Status Update

“[As people with chronic pain], we need to get better so that others don’t feel so uncomfortable, confused, or threatened around us… it’s as if they need that positive cap on the experience in order for it to be contained; otherwise they fear that the darkness and suffering will seep over onto them, that they’ll catch the pain.”

“When I was in pain, the illusion that I am an individual independent of others faded and the truth that I need others in order to survive came into focus.”

“God, through Jesus’ incarnation, shows us that the goal of life isn’t to transcend our bodies and their limits, but to be fully human within them.”

“Patients come to the exam room as a collection of symptoms to be analyzed, leaving behind their stories- the ways they’ve lived through their illness, their reasons for getting up in the morning and having purposeful lives despite debilitating pain and limitations…in the process, we lose one of the key ingredients to healing- a sense that we are not isolated, that others are with us, for us, in our journey.”

“We’ve always had trouble with spiritual uncertainty and tried to ascertain whether we have God’s favor or not by looking at our bodies or material circumstances for ‘proof’ that we are blessed, that we are God’s elect.”