Whips and Suffering

It has been a hard week.  I lost my brother to cancer last Sunday.  While we knew he had cancer we never expected it to move this fast and literally within a week of hearing there was an issue I was saying goodbye.  I have run through so many emotions, but today as I was driving I began to think about the pain that comes from this world.  Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it agonizes.  It got me thinking about upcoming Good Friday.  My Savior being whipped over and over, skin tearing from his flesh, knowing what was to come, knowing how heavy the burden and each lash bringing immediate pain. 

God never promised we wouldn't suffer, in fact His word often reminds us in this world we will suffer.  It even says to count it all joy when we suffer.  We serve a king who knows what its like and can relate to the suffering. 

Sometimes in my life it has felt like a whip has been taken to my soul, sometimes like now and when my mother died it was an agonizing lash, sometimes when I was diagnosed with numerous chronic conditions its painful, when I suffered a miscarriage and struggled in pregnancy and when my marriage was struggling the lashes seemed to carry on and on.  However as I stood and took my lashes with my mouth silenced due to fate, I followed in the steps of my Father.  I know who wins the war and I won't let the lashes of the enemy's sinful world change my steps. 

The enemy may laugh and mock while the tears run down my cheeks and the lashes may feel so deep I can't move forward or so constant I can't stand up to carry my cross, but again my Savior gave me an example, he is there to help me lift it and keep going.  The enemy's came to steal, lie, kill and destroy.  Those lies did not write my brother's story and it shall not write mine.  I shall stand as he did bravely taking lash after lash, standing silent because I know the victory can not compare to the pain inflicted.

Was there ever really a "good old days"

The older I get the more I become aware of the fact that no there was not ever a "good old days".  I see many people get fired up about issues and seem to put on very distorted views of these days gone by.  While I would agree past generations did things different, was it really better or good?  We tend to forget that it was not a lack of sin that existed it was a lack of awareness.  Is this generation really doing things better?? Time will tell!  But the past didn't have the keys to better.  While yes we saw more marriages stay together, but what we didn't see was the abuse the women were not allowed to talk about, the isolation and lack of say in their own futures.  Yes we seemed to have"safer neighborhoods" where these moms were keeping an eye out, but was the for everyone or just those in the right socioeconomic situation and the right color.  Yes abortion was not an issues, but do we neglect to remember that sex was still happening before marriage and these girls who got pregnant were shunned and sent away to maternity homes only to have their babies taken from them and put up for adoption without an option to be their mother.  Do we remember that yes we had the 10 commandments and prayer in school, but we still had segregation and blatant racism.  We have forever lived in a world tainted in sin, no generation had a better handle on it.  Yes we believed girls should be girls and boys should be boys, but do we forget how those who didn't fit the mold were ridiculed and bullied even by their own families.  We need to not live in a way where we believe the generation we were most comfortable in our sin was really better.  We need to remember every generation is doing its best to survive and thrive in a sinful world and instead of constantly reminding this generation that we did it  "better" or ridicule their choices in carrying the weight we left them we need to come along side them, listen to them, work with them. Our choices may not have been the same as theirs but they were not better. Going back to the way it was doesn't help in fact for many that is a terrifying thought.