Everything I Have, I Need, and Everything I Need, I Have

      I recently read a story written by a woman I know, about her cancer diagnosis. She asked her Rabbi, "Now that I am diagnosed, how can I work on being happy?" (it's proven that state-of-mind has a HUGE effect on the progression or non-progression of cancer). 
     He answered her with a mantra:


Everything I need, I have, and everything I have, I need.


     Cancer was now counted amongst her 'needed' tools and possessions. 
     When I first read this, I was shocked- how would I be able to accept such a perspective, in her situation? But the more I think about it, the truer the statement sounds to me. 
G-d gives. To all of us. All the time. And if I look around, everything (absolutely everything) present in my existence is something G-d chose to give me. Everything that is not present in my life, by the same token, is something G-d chose to withhold.
     For the woman in this story, G-d was giving cancer- it must be something that she needed. He was withholding health- it must be something she did not need. She repeated this to herself every morning, for years.She writes:


" I decided that the fear and worry  were like smutty lyrics I would not stoop to listen to, and instead I put 'Everything I Need I Have, Everything I Have I Need' on the repeat function of my mind. Then even when lying in my hospital bed hooked up to an IV, in my heart I was dancing to the joyous music."


    And what's the end of the story? She doesn't seem sick now, and the diagnosis was 8 years ago. And even if it had turned out differently (G-d forbid), she would have experienced the illness with complete mental freedom and celebration. That's what I love about living with a Torah perspective. You become an internal warrior.