Contentment

This morning, I read an article in the sports section about a coach who is suffering from a degenerative heart problem and takes a lot of medication for it while waiting for a heart transplant.  The coach, a woman, says the pills she takes in the morning are her “breakfast.”  She continues her work.  She led her team to a conference championship this spring (women’s golf), and they are in the running for an NCAA championship.
“She’s happy all the time, no matter what,” said one of her players.
Even if she receives the transplant, she has only a 70% chance of being alive in five years.  Those are the statistics for women transplant recipients.
I don’t know this woman and I am not a big sports fan.  What struck me as I read the article is how many of us deal with issues such as this on a daily basis.  I have friends who are dealing with macular degeneration, chronic infection, alcoholism, anorexia/bulimia, schizophrenia, debilitating arthritis, cancer, and other chronic, serious ailments.  Some of these people are young in age and in the prime of life.
Those of us who don’t have such serious problems still deal with the more minor issues of daily living…high blood pressure, vertigo, hearing and/or vision loss, and other such things.
The remarkable thing is that those who suffer from what would seem to me to be a truly intractable problem also seem to be the most well-grounded and pragmatic.  They seem to be upbeat and have an attitude to die for (figuratively speaking).  They take each day as it comes, and place all of the cares of both today and tomorrow into the hands of a Higher Power that sustains and supports them.
Somehow, many of these people have learned what a lot of us would like to know.  “I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content,” said the great Apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul of Tarsus.