Comments on: Is God Punishing? http://serenityhome.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/is-god-punishing/ Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:22:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: serenityhome http://serenityhome.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/is-god-punishing/#comment-55 serenityhome Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:31:41 +0000 http://serenityhome.wordpress.com/?p=25#comment-55 Lizard Eater: My heart goes out to your family! I don't buy the we are here to 'learn lessons to prepare us for the next life or whatever we are being prepared for' line either. Life is life and I choose to suck the marrow out of it in appreciation of it all. Enjoy your daughter! Enjoy being there with her in her laughing and crying moments with the fullness of love in your heart. Embrace it all and let the mystery be. I know that I got emotional in this post and it is because I can only see pain in this kind of thinking for those who accept this concept of a punishing god as truth. And the same goes for your example of the "gentler" version. Faith, in my opinion, should be something that transcends our experiences and liberates us to embrace life in its fullness. Lizard Eater: My heart goes out to your family! I don’t buy the we are here to ‘learn lessons to prepare us for the next life or whatever we are being prepared for’ line either. Life is life and I choose to suck the marrow out of it in appreciation of it all. Enjoy your daughter! Enjoy being there with her in her laughing and crying moments with the fullness of love in your heart. Embrace it all and let the mystery be.

I know that I got emotional in this post and it is because I can only see pain in this kind of thinking for those who accept this concept of a punishing god as truth. And the same goes for your example of the “gentler” version. Faith, in my opinion, should be something that transcends our experiences and liberates us to embrace life in its fullness.

]]> By: Lizard Eater http://serenityhome.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/is-god-punishing/#comment-54 Lizard Eater Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:05:32 +0000 http://serenityhome.wordpress.com/?p=25#comment-54 Great post. The "gentler" version of this thought process is, "God is giving you this, so that you can learn and grow." I have heard versions of this, not only in my Christian seminary, but in my UU home church. My daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 7 months old. She's almost three now, and we go in for surgery Thursday to see if the cancer has returned. Really, this is so that all the rest of us can learn lessons through the sacrifice of her? As you succinctly put it, what an SOB! I always come back, as you mention, to the issue of consistency. Parents who are far better people than I am, and certainly have more devout faith, have lost their children to this disease. And as a friend of mine said -- a friend who lost her child to leukemia -- "There is no lesson I learned that was important enough to justify his death." Great post. The “gentler” version of this thought process is, “God is giving you this, so that you can learn and grow.” I have heard versions of this, not only in my Christian seminary, but in my UU home church.

My daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 7 months old. She’s almost three now, and we go in for surgery Thursday to see if the cancer has returned. Really, this is so that all the rest of us can learn lessons through the sacrifice of her? As you succinctly put it, what an SOB!

I always come back, as you mention, to the issue of consistency. Parents who are far better people than I am, and certainly have more devout faith, have lost their children to this disease.

And as a friend of mine said — a friend who lost her child to leukemia — “There is no lesson I learned that was important enough to justify his death.”

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