Living Proof

Have you ever been attacked for your faith in God? Did you ever have someone ask you a million and one challenging questions regarding why God "lets" bad things happen? I'm finding that many Christians don't know how to respond to this -- or perhaps they fail to respond in a clear way. Let's face it, we're people who have faith of God, not knowledge of God. We're taught to trust in God and that suffering is taking part in Christ's suffering. But still, questions get asked, "Why does God let children fall ill to cancer, or why does God let grown adults rape children?" These are really good questions -- touchy subjects too, but valid inquiries of the darkness of this fallen world. But that's just what it is: the world. The world is encompassed mostly by evil. "But there are good people in the world." Yes, but overall, the world is overpowered by evil. Believers are not "of this world" -- this world will soon pass ...

It can't be easy being around someone who is dealing with horrible grief, especially if the grief is exaggerated by already existing anxiety and depression. We also can't fake being happy all the time, so there's a fine line between being real (even if it's a deep depressive state) and being accepting of all that has happened. I totally understand the concept of happy attracts happy, and the opposite alike. It's a dark place to be in when you're grieving, but it's also a dark place for anyone trying to help that person whose tears are literally drowning you out of their presence. And if you're the type of person that has broad shoulders and can be there during the times of somebody grieving, hats off to you. Not many are able to do that. We all have our trials and tribulations in life, so the amount of sharing is up to you, and it's up to the person who receives the 'sharing' to take a step back. We can only handle so much, but sometimes,...

Ever see one of those posts people plop onto Facebook where it says someone you may know may have an invisible disability of some sort? Most of it is like, anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia or other chronic and sometimes debilitating ailments. As I've written many times before about my dysmenorrhea, I've gotten to the point where I can no longer live with it any longer. These days, it's not only the pain from dysmenorrhea, it triggers my sciatica pain as well. Double whammy. I am not willing to give up 2-3 days of my life per month (which is when the pain is excruciating) in order to nurse this condition or end up in the hospital with Dilaudid -- a medicine ten times stronger than morphine. The main side effect: death from respiratory depression. At that point of pain, you're begging for death. The other night, I watched the clock slip hour by hour as I screamed in pain. 10 o'clock...11 o'clock...1 o'clock...4 o'clock. Madelene finally said, "Let...