Meditations on God

When you are going through something difficult or painful, you get to choose how you respond to the experience.

You can either question why you have to go through this.

Or you can be grateful that you get to go through this.

Obviously, it is not easy to be grateful for all difficult or painful experiences.

Nor should you let anyone tell you how to feel.

Your experience and your feelings are yours alone.

No one would suggest that trauma or injury are joyful experiences, for example.

However, if you are experiencing pain and difficulty in your life, it means you are alive, not in the obvious sense that your heart is beating, but in the sense that to live is to experience pain and difficulty.

To live is to feel and to feel is to feel everything, good and bad.

To deny yourself this experience, to ignore or reject pain and difficulty, or to push away or shut down what you perceive to be negative feelings or emotions, is to deny yourself the opportunity to truly live.

And yet, it is still your choice to make, as no one can live your life for you.