DISCERNMENT

08 Feb DISCERNMENT

“HONESTY IS THE FIRST CHAPTER IN THE BOOK OF WISDOM.”

Thomas Jefferson

      It seems that the political climate has made many go wild about which ever side that they supported.  Some want the results changed to fit their own sense of values and others want to go far the other direction.  What is right will only be gauged by history.

     I read an article about a 71 year old woman who voted for Hillary and is so distraught over her loss that her husband who supported President Trump is loathsome to her now.  She is not going to the legal expense of divorcing him she is just going to leave and live her own life.  It is hard for me to digest where a persons priorities lie that would allow something like politics to actually interfere with life.

      I have, as many other have done, shared the Veterans Suicide Hotline number on my Facebook page because of the huge numbers of Vets that take their own lives each year.

      Lets face it, there is a lot of pain and frustration out there.  Real or imagined pain is a terrible thing that many have to put up with in their lives.  But then who does not have pain in one form or another?  Letting pain interfere with life is a horrible thing to deal with and there is no one who can actually understand the pain of another.

     A good friend of mine, who has terrible pain with a debilitating disease, asked many of his friends at the first of the year to write a letter of support to a person who is in indescribable pain and there has been no success in relieving, or even identifying, what is causing the ordeal that she is going through.  So I wrote a letter to this person I have never met.  Hopefully there is something here that you can identify with and may borrow to deal with your own difficulties.

LOOKING TOWARDS 2017

     “A friend of mine, that knows suffering first hand, told me your story and I want to       reach out and wish you a very much improved 2017.  Many suffer so much and the         reasons are not apparent to us and each of us with pain only have to look to another     to appreciate that others have worse pain than oneself.  We can look to the heavens       and wonder the why and there is no immediate answer.

      Wisdom comes through suffering and yet we cannot attain the wisdom of seeing          the why of it all.  When the wisdom is slowly gained it is in the realization that it is        not the imperfection of the body that defines who we are but the growth of the soul      that comes from it.

      Pain can distract us from the life we cherish and wish to live and can change the           goals that we have for ourselves.  We are given a choice of becoming bitter or                   graciously understand that the fight is not alone.

       You have friends and family who love and support you and wish that they could           take on the burden and spare you from it.  It is hard to be philosophical and reflect         on the whys and wherefores when the pain is so present that the act of thinking is         hard.  No one can tell you that they know what you are going through.  For as                   different as you are as a child of God no one can truly understand what you deal with     every minute, hour, and day.

      Under God’s Heaven there is no one like you.  You are unique and yet are the same       as many who also suffer.  It is the tempering of how we learn to deal with the pain         that puts the steel in your spirit and the beauty in your soul.

      As terrible as the pain can be how wonderful will the final rest be when life is lived       full and time has come to be called home and your spirit will have rest and joy for           eternity.  Time may drag slowly but how delightful will be the time when time is no       more just the pain will be no more.

      It cannot be easy to think that the time you spend drags so long.  It is your shining       spirit that gives an example to others to be joyful even when the pain of this world         seems to be too much.  Those who love you will be forged in your spirit by your                 example.  By their anguish of seeing your pain may they be brought closer to you             and the God of all mercies.

With a wish for you in 2017″

     I cannot tell you the name of the person now, but I hope that what I wrote to her can make others take pause to reflect on the pains, real and imagined.  There is a huge shift in values today and what I would call reality is not accepted by others.

     Life is too short to expend energy and hatred on things that are not important.  The priorities that we put on ourselves should not be forced on to others.  It is also wrong for others priorities to be forced on ourselves.