{"id":9800,"date":"2021-05-26T12:55:54","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T16:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=9800"},"modified":"2021-05-08T07:56:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T11:56:51","slug":"elder-st-paisios-on-the-benefits-of-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=9800","title":{"rendered":"Elder St Paisios on the Benefits of Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thank God for granting me many illnesses.1 I often say to Him: \u2018My Christ, Your love knows no limits!\u2019 How I am alive is a miracle. Among all my other illnesses I also have cancer of the pituitary gland. A tumor appeared there which has grown and presses against the optic nerve. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t see any more. I am in dreadful pain. But I pray, taking up the cross of\u00a0 Christ with patience. Have you seen what my tongue is like? It has grown; it\u2019s not as it used to be. That\u2019s also a result of the cancer I\u2019ve got in my head. And as time goes on, things will get worse. It will grow even more and I\u2019ll have difficulty in speaking. I\u2019m in great pain, but my illness is something very beautiful. I feel it as the love of Christ. I am given compunction and I give thanks to God. It is on account of my sins. I am sinful and God is trying to purify me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; \u2018Spiritual Struggle\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9801\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/motsamenta-monastery-300x216.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/motsamenta-monastery-300x216.jpg 300w, http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/motsamenta-monastery.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thank God for granting me many illnesses.1 I often say to Him: \u2018My Christ, Your love knows no limits!\u2019 How I am alive is a miracle. Among all my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9802,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9800\/revisions\/9802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}