Two Eyes, Two Hands

I received this in an e-mail from Steve Goodier. Perhaps you need this today or know someone who does.

An older couple lay in bed one morning, having just awakened from a
good night's sleep. He tenderly took her hand, but she pulled back
responding, "Don't touch me."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I'm dead."

Her confused husband said, "What are you talking about? We're both
lying here in bed together and talking to one another."

"No," she said, "I'm definitely dead."

He insisted, "You're not dead. What in the world makes you think
you're dead?"

"Because I woke up this morning and nothing hurts."

It is good to be able to laugh when we can, and especially about
daily aches and pains or normal problems. But sometimes our
difficulties and losses are so staggering we wonder how long we can
cope. Lingering and chronic illness, loss of someone we love and
overwhelming worry can devastate us. All of us have known almost
unbearable pain and hardships. Heart-breaking times. We might
think we will never again wake up feeling good.

A wise obstetrician at a university teaching hospital once made a
comment about suffering. Someone asked the doctor what advice he
offered to his students, future doctors and nurses, when caring for
mothers who gave birth to stillborn infants.

The doctor paused for a moment in thought. Then he said this: "I tell
them that they need two eyes. One eye is not enough; they need two
eyes. With one eye they have to check the I.V.; and with the other
eye they have to weep. That's what I tell them," he said. "I tell
them that they need two eyes."

He knows the secret of hard times: we need two eyes. One for seeing,
the other for weeping. And we need two hands. One for holding on, the
other for reaching out.

I don't know all there is to know about suffering. But I do know the
way to survive it. Two eyes; two hands. That's how we get through
this life best.