The Gift of Being
Is there a way that those of us afflicted with suffering, is there
a way that we can turn that into something constructive and not
let it continue to wound us? Well, my one suggestion would be, and
it grows out of my own experience, my one suggestion would be for
you to simply ask, "How did I ever get born into this world? Did
I come into aliveness through entitlement? Did I earn my [way] in?
Or was life given me as an incredible, generous gift, given me
beyond deserving by another who wanted me to be?"

If you look at life as gift and not entitlement, then the sheer
wonder of getting to be alive is so overwhelmingly marvelous that
the particular hand you are dealt circumstantially is secondary to
the wonder of getting to be in the game at all. And my sense is
that the way to become a wounded healer is to stand in astonishment
at the fact that birth is windfall and life is gift, and be so
grateful that you are simply here that the things that are done to
you are not nearly as significant as the gift you were given the
day you were born.

--from the sermon "A Wounded Healer"
by The Rev. Dr. John R. Claypool

Read the sermon in its entirety.