Christ Animated

So many people want to be a help to those who are going through a period of separation and/or divorce. They offer well-meaning comments and prayers, but some of those well-meaning comments don't come across quite the way I think the people mean them. I've heard people at funerals tell the grieving parent that it was "God's will" for their child to die. This is not  what should be said to someone grieving, during the funeral, or at visitation! No comfort is offered by hearing that God wanted  your child to die. Mis-placed words during the death of a relationship are no less hurtful. "I never liked him/her, anyway." "You'll be fine. You'll get over this." "You'll find someone else in no time." "God hates divorce." "If you had worked harder on your marriage, maybe you could have avoided all this." You know, I didn't marry her because you liked or didn't like her. I know I'll be ...

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Or hurts, maims, scars, and disfigures you. Let's be honest - pain hurts. I'm allergic to pain. We all can put up with some level of pain; we all have a certain threshold for it. Some have higher thresholds, others lower, but we all can put up with a certain level of it.  Those hospital "pain scales", where you try to describe your pain according to the level of stress depicted on the smiley faces on the chart ... aren't really all that helpful. "How bad is your pain, sir?" Hmm. "1" looks like I'm not in pain at all, just happy to be here, really. "10" is the worst pain in my life. Is this really the worst I've ever felt? Well, it hurt really bad when that car fell on me, and I'm pretty sure that being stepped on by an elephant or being bitten by a hippopotamus would be worse than this spike in my arm, so ... "Five?" How bad is the emotional pain I...