Dear Dr. Norquist:
I have always been a religious person. I attend mass several times a week. I have often prayed for others. Now I am sick and have been asking God for help, but I don’t feel any better. I ache all the time – my muscles are sore. I can’t think clearly. It is an effort just to do the laundry. I have always had faith in God. But it has been over a year now that I don’t feel well and I’m wondering why I haven’t received any help from God. I don’t know if I did anything to displease him. The doctor has diagnosed me with fibromyalgia and they don’t really know how to cure it. I’m getting more depressed. Do you think God is angry with me? Why hasn’t he helped me?
Dr. Norquist responds:
I don’t believe that God is angry at you or punishing you with fibromyalgia. Rather than waiting for God to answer your prayers, you can use your willpower to open yourself to your own God-given power to bring healing into your life. You are not a passive victim here. Health is multifaceted and the result of living in harmony with God’s natural laws. Illness can be a means of re-connecting with God, and experiencing God’s presence more fully.
Your task here is in discovering where the discord is in your life. Illness can arise from discord on several levels. It can be from abusing your body’s needs for healthy food, proper exercise, restful sleep, and a balanced rhythm of working and resting. It can also arise from poor thinking habits, negative, unprocessed emotions, faulty beliefs, and from keeping poor company. Some illnesses arise from the inner discontent, depression, and emptiness that result from closing God out of our lives.
I am sorry that you are suffering with fibromyalgia but it is possible for this illness to serve as Grace in your life. It pushes you to discover more about yourself; where the inharmonious elements exist in your life, and how to awaken your inner experience of God. I believe God is always present and available, once we do the inner work of connecting.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed psychologist (NJ #2371) in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling Services, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling Services, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding health-related concerns.Ó 2015 Chaitanya Counseling Services