No, really, I do!

I like my life. I like life in general. I've been reading way too many whiney posts today, and it's frustrating me. I don't like life because I'm ignorant of how difficult it is (anybody who's spent 3 months in the Burn/Trauma ICU "family" waiting room gets a good dose of difficult life-ness, and that's just the start of my reasons to feel like I have an inkling).

I just think it's freaking worth it. Is that such a stretch?

Okay - here's where I get my thinking from. It's an LDS scriptural thing, so whatever that is worth to you, read on...
Moses 7: 26-69, ESP. Verses 28, 48, 58 & 67. In that short space of scripture you have Enoch and Jehovah running the whole gamut of emotions together as they view every stinking piece of wickedness and righteousness that there is to see. And you know where they end up?...They receive a fullness of joy. Nice stuff.

I guess it's just that we tend to notice negative things because they are the squeaky wheels that get the grease. We notice the things that aren't right because they are not right and that makes us want to fix them... At least people like me. But that doesn't mean that nothing's right, it just means that not everything's right. And the balance between what is right and what is not right is awfully difficult for a mere mortal to judge. So no kidding there is pain and suffering and that a heck of a lot of innocent people are doing an unfair portion of the suffering. BUT I think that as humans beings we underestimate our ability to suffer. I've seen absolutely unimaginable quantities of physical suffering, by people who have survived and are now happily functioning the best they can... and not that I'd ever wish suffering on anybody, but it's just possible that they are better for it.

I'm not as comfortable with emotional suffering, although I've been exposed to oodles and oodles of it. Mental illness is an enigma for me, and my family has seen plenty of it. I don't claim to have put my finger on that one yet, but I believe that maybe, just maybe there's the potential that it can increase our understanding and appreciation of the Atonement if we allow it to, not that such a thought can or should necessarily make it any less painful to bear. Maybe the point is that it is supposed to be painful to bear. Awful to think, I know.

As human beings and especially as parents (to-be), we have a very strong instinct to prevent and remedy suffering. This is probably a good thing. But I'm not entirely convinced that an end to all suffering would be a good thing (doesn't that sound rather like a Luciferous way of working the world?) But by responding to other people's suffering, we develop compassion, humility and charity and all sorts of good and deeply necessary characteristics. With no suffering as a catalyst, how on earth would we manage to become more like God? Just my 2 cents.

So I declare to the world out there that life is OK. It is okay for me and it is okay for people whose lives are plum awful. And the reason it is OK is because God knows what He's doing with and to each and every one of us. And we are capable of far more than we want to be capable of, unpleasant as it may be. THAT dear reader is why I have no problem bringing a baby into this terribly harsh unfair world.
.......
(steps off of soap box and excuses herself to go enjoy some dry heaving in the little girl's room)