by Ruby Gagelonia
Very recently, a close friend, Gerry [not his real name], was suddenly diagnosed with leukemia. He didn't see it coming -- he just kept working 16 hours a day, not paying attention to his body's natural needs for rest and recreation.

When he couldn't take another step without gasping for breath, Gerry finally listened to his sister's advice to see the doctor. When the doctor called back with his blood exam results, saying that he should come in immediately for confinement, he said he still had to finish a meeting he was attending. A couple of days later, he was getting chemotherapy treatments for leukemia.

Our close-knit group of friends was devastated. How can something like this happen to our dearest friend? After we all called and visited, and expressed our concern and support to Gerry, he admitted, "God must be telling me something… I think He just gave me a wake up call."

"Ye," one of our friends agreed. "You and all of us are being reminded to take it easy -- to take care of ourselves! We all need to work for a living, but we also need to rest… you know, stop and smell the roses!"

Gerry came out of his two-week chemotherapy sessions free of the leukemia. He's now recuperating and hopefully can come home very soon. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when we heard the good news, and nodded to one another, "Yes, we were all just being reminded."

The worst situations always bring with them the brunt of life's lessons. Sometimes we can be so stubborn in learning the simplest lessons that a catastrophe needs to happen for the message to sink in. A dear friend has to contract leukemia to remind us that we shouldn't abuse our bodies… or that we should express our love more often because we could lose our dearest ones any second… or that the price of a long distance call is nothing compared to the warmth and affection we send through the phone lines.

And when we distress about the rut we're in right now, or the pain we feel at the moment, or even why it rains on our picnic, we know deep inside that there's a reason why these things happen to us. We may get to understand the reason, and the lesson, sometime in the distant future, but for now, we can be content to believe that things happen for a reason, and whether it seems apparent or not, the reason is always for our own good.

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Ruby Bayan-Gagelonia is a freelance Filipina writer, whose writing is mostly inspirational and motivational. She has written for numerous newsletters, magazines, and web sites. Her web site www.oursimplejoys.com was one of the 10 "Best Writer's Web Sites" in 2002