Last week I became ill, not terribly by any means, but enough to not want to go anywhere or do anything. For so many reasons, being ill carries with it such terrible feelings.

I hate the sense of feeling like a bum. I hate lying in bed, not getting dressed, and not wanting to do anything for myself. Moreover, I hate the sense in which I feel like a burden to both my wife and kids. Being sick stinks.

The thing about stomach bugs though is that a person knows they’ve got one. It’s impossible to miss that awful feeling in your gut. What’s going on inside is often externalized through appearances. It’s hard for sicknesses to go undetected, even by those around us.

The same is true of spiritual illnesses. They are generally very detectable, and yet people will often try to deny that anything is even wrong. This is so terrible. It’s hard to be sick and not know it, but it’s unfathomable to be sick and know it, have others know it too, and yet deny it!