Does God Get Sick? Poem by Jim Yerman

Does God Get Sick?



God can mean so many things to so many different people
Whether you visit a mosque, a synagogue or pray under a steeple.

Many struggle their whole lives looking to find a way
To understand who their God is and what he or she is trying to say.

For proof of a God look around you, look to all inhabitants of Earth
The flowers that bloom, the rain that falls, the miracle of childbirth.

Look to the birds that fly, the winds that blow, look to the changing ocean tides
I think wherever you find innocence and beauty that's where God resides.

Perhaps He is not as complicated as we make Him out to be
Perhaps the essence of God is in Her simplicity.

I'm reminded of a story about a doctor who in a hospital one day
Had a heart attack, fell to the ground and in an instant passed away.

His son, also a doctor, couldn't get his father's heart to beating
(How often we are reminded how life is nothing if not fleeting.)

The son was having a hard time coping with the sudden loss of his dad
He tried hard to fight the bitterness that came with being sad.

He was doing rounds one afternoon and walked up to a young boy's bed
"You look so sad, " the young boy observed, "is that because you're dad is dead? "

"He was a good doctor, " the boy said. "I bet that's why God called him up to Heaven? "
A very insightful observation from a boy who just turned 7.

The doctor ignored the young boy's assertion, trying to remain stoic.
"Doctor, can you tell me, do you think that God gets sick? "

The doctor looked at the boy and stopped tending to his task
"I hadn't ever thought about it, Billy, tell me, why'd you ask? "

"Well the way I figure it, " Billy said, "God must be feeling pretty bad
He's got plenty of doctors in heaven but he still preferred your dad.

The doctor smiled and in that instant emerged from his cloud of gloom
Proof that, although unseen, God was somewhere in that room.

Why do we spend our lives endlessly searching for ways to ease our strife
When the answers lies before us in the beauty and innocence of life?

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