If this is hell, I can't wait to see what's better! That's so easy for me to say, isn't it? I am not going to count my blessings publicly, even though I do sometimes, I know some people think I am obnoxious because I brag too much.
Sometimes (pretty much all the time) I feel like Job, before all the nasty stuff happened to him. He was a very fortunate man, and he knew it, and he praised God for it, until God and the Devil decided to make a bet on whether he would keep praising God if he weren't so fortunate.
I am afraid to ever complain to God about anything, no matter how little, because I am afraid God will let me know what it means to really suffer, just so I can learn something about the nature of faith.
True suffering terrifies me, as well it should. When I was a kid, my mother went through a phase of reading about the Holocaust, I don't know why, but there were all these books about it all over the place, and I used to pick them up and read them sometimes, and found them devastating. As well I should. As anyone should. Also, when I was a kid, there was the Cuban missile crisis, and I became terrified of nuclear war, and every time I heard an air raid siren being tested, I'd freak a little. Remember "this is a test, this is only a test"? Hiroshima and Nagasaki - does it get worse than nuclear war?
How about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Seven Year's War, the Hundred Years War, the Black Plague, on and on.
Circumcision of women in Africa. Slavery. Child prostitution. Rape. Murder. Ted Bundy. John Gacey.
Given the choice between Ted Bundy and a train, I'd pick the train.
Wow, but you know how lucky I am? What makes me even luckier is that I know I am lucky. Some people (my husband, for example) think their lives are sh*t, even though they are just as fortunate as I am. He might agree with you that this could be hell. I think it could be heaven, at least if you are as lucky as I am. |
