Tag Archives: pain

Philosophic, Religious

When my child suffers, how do I keep my faith and still love my god?

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“When my child suffers, how do I keep my faith and still love my god?” – A question from my friend, Stu Grater.

My initial general answer to this question is, perspective.

I personally have suffered pain. Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual pain. I expect I will continue to suffer pain in the future. “Life is pain”, said the Dread Pirate Roberts. To some extent, I believe he is correct. I believe that one of the many facets of life is to learn how to suffer, or to learn from our suffering.

Experiencing personal suffering is different than witnessing the suffering of others, especially little children. When my children are sick and I have done all that I can for them and yet they still are suffering from pain and discomfort, it can be very frustrating to me.

“How could God let children suffer?”
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Philosophic

Beat the Status Quo

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I was out running this morning. While I ran I was listening to a podcast in which Dr. Paul interviewed Jarom Thurston. It was an excellent podcast about how has made the choice to do what he though was impossible and run a 135 mile race.

Jarom Thurston running Badwater

As running usually does, it got me thinking about things. That is one of the wonderful benefits of exercising my body. It usually wakes up not only my body but also my mind and my spirit. I think more clearly and am more in tune with the universe.

Anyway, I got to thinking about barriers (aka walls, obstacles, challenges, hard times in life). Barriers are not put in our life for us to stop at. Instead, barriers are but mile markers. They are hurdles to go over under around or through. The were put in our life to challenge us and to make us better. We become better when we give up the comfort of the status quo.

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Entropic, Philosophic, Religious

Comfortable is Boring

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Have you ever started a new project, or a new job, or a new hobby, or a new experience? If you have then you have probably felt that feeling of fear, or panic, or discomfort at not knowing what you are doing, or where you are going, or how you are going to do accomplish what you need to.

That fear/panic/discomfort is natural. It is an indicator to let you know that you are at the edge of your experience and about to step out of your comfort zone. Stepping off the edge of fear and out of your comfort zone is the point at which you start exploring and expanding yourself. At that point you can begin to learn and grow and become more than who and what you were the moment before you when you were still being comfortably afraid. Embrace the fear of the unknown. Come to thrive upon it and your horizons and perspectives will explode, opening to you a whole universe of possibility.

Do not be afraid to make mistakes. If you did everything perfectly the first time you would be a god. And since you know you are not a god yet, it makes sense that you still have some things to learn, thus, you still have some (likely many) mistakes to make. Mistakes are only bad if you choose not to learn from them. Mistakes can be painful, uncomfortable, and humiliating. Find joy in recognizing mistakes when you make them and take care to learn from them so that you do not have to repeat them.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)