If you have your health, do you have everything?
If you don’t have your health, does nothing else truly matter?
The old saying would have you believe so.
Regularly spending time with the sick and dying would have me believe not. (See: The Most Overlooked Characteristic of Who You Want to Marry)
There is no denying the importance of health. We take it for granted until a stomach virus, the flu, severe back pain, cancer, a heart attack, or some other medical emergency shakes us back to reality.
The ability to breathe, have a steady heartbeat, think and function is of great importance.
But it is not everything. (See: A Map for Navigating Life’s Disappointments)
I know many healthy people who clearly don’t have everything.
They may have a healthy heart, good lungs, the ability to walk, think, and live but they don’t have peace. They don’t have purpose. They don’t have a basic understanding of why they exist or what matters.
Over the years I have interacted with many dying people.
They may not have their health, but they wouldn’t trade places with anyone.
Nothing else matters?
Which would you rather have:
- Your health or the respect of your wife?
- Your health or the knowledge your kids know you love them?
- Your health or the admiration of a community you have influenced?
- Your health or the gratitude of a country you served?
- Your health or a contentment with life?
- Your health or peace with God?
Health is important, but there are many things which are more important.
When I think about my children:
- I would rather they be honest than healthy.
- I would rather they be noble than healthy.
- I would rather they be courageous than healthy.
- I would rather they know God than know a life of health.
If you doubt me, Click Here and you will read the story of a friend of mine as he journeys with his son’s struggle with leukemia. Despite sickness, this father and son have something that I’ve seen a thousand healthy fathers long for and a thousand healthy children grieve because they never have. Read and ask yourself, is health really everything?
If you doubt me, Click Here and read of my father-in-law’s journey with cancer. Despite sickness, he is far more lucky than many men I know. He has a wife who loves him, a family who adores him, and a community which admires him. Ask him if he would trade any of those things for health and he would likely laugh. Even when a man is sick, there are a few things that still truly matter.
If you doubt me, Click Here and read of my daughter with Down syndrome. As you read, remember that we don’t even have a good understanding of what is truly healthy and what is truly sick. We think we know, but our value system is so askew that we do not understand what truly matters.
Health is important. I do not debate that fact.
However, it is not everything. And there are a few things that matter far more than health.
Pursue healthiness. Understand its importance. But pursue those other things even more.
Because everyone will eventually lose their health and in those times, a few will still posses the things that truly matter.
For more, see:
A Secret About Today Which Could Change Everything
Kevin, As the administrator of CUSA, an apostolate of persons with chronic illness and or disability, I heartily concur with your sentiments. I am hearing impaired, suffer from psoriatic arthritis and post-polio syndrome, and am a cancer survivor. Some would say that my life is nothing but one doctor’s office visit after another. However, I ever I would never trade my relationship with God for a life of good health.
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Although I respect what you are trying to say, speaking as a health educator, I must touch upon that fact that when you practice living a healthy lifestyle the above referenced automatically fall into place. That being, health of the mind, health of the body, and health of the spirit. So with that, when you have your health, you do have everything.
Until you have a chronic illness yourself, you NO NOTHING.
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The article “IF YOU HAVE YOUR HEALTH..” is gibberish on every level.
An interesting discussion is worth comment.
There’s no doubt that that you should write more about this issue, it may not be a taboo subject but typically folks don’t talk about such issues.
To the next! Best wishes!!
This is stupid. If you don’t have your health, and your dead, you will not have all the other crap listed here. Who cares if the wife respects you? If your withering away in a hospital she’s going to move on once your dead anyway. Health is important period. The line is also not supposed to be taken quite so literally. God? Man would not have been able to make up that hoax without his health.