I’m not really sure why I’m posting this. It’s been on my heart for weeks now and thus, I shall share. I touched on this topic years ago with this post but I want to expand.
Offend me. I guarantee you, it can’t be done. Go ahead. Tell me that I’m short. Laugh at how I’ve won 1 playoff game in 25 years of coaching. Look at my car and tell me your grandmother drives a cooler car. Tell me that my ministry is a fraud since I don’t have my Masters of Divinity. Point out that my blog (if not about Penn Hills) gets less than 200 reads each week.
You didn’t get there yet? Go for the big ones. My wife needs to work because I don’t make enough $$. My son isn’t great at volleyball. My daughter gets picked on at school by the “good kids” (PLEASE DON’T SAY ANYTHING TO HER. I won’t be offended, just mad). Trust me, you didn’t get there yet.
You wouldn’t, and maybe no one would, ever go there but what if you made fun of pediatric cancer or our public fight against it? People actually do this to other, more public, people. For me? Still not offended.
Why? Am I dead inside? Hardly. Am I cold and bitter? Not at all. Have I given up? You know that’s not true. So what is it?
I believe it to be mostly due to the fact that I have gone through a lot. I have been able to grieve my hurts and have them comforted. I have had to face my failures and come to grips with my role in them. I have come to appreciate my strengths and know that I don’t have to be (and can’t be) perfect. I realize that when others have more than me in some instances that it’s only in certain ways. I have some things that others don’t, it all evens out.
Perhaps most of all I understand that there is a God who loves me. He watches over me throughout my circumstances and despite my performance. In my darkest of times, He provided for me. He sent His Son to pay the price for my sins. Cliche’ and perhaps trite as it may be, if He is for me, who can be against?
To a degree, why I can’t be offended is what saddens me most about our world today. There are so many who have so many unresolved hurts. There are people comparing themselves to others both in plenty (what others have) and in want ( what others don’t have to go through). There are others who will just never feel worthy or deserving of love (or other good things) and lash out from their hurts and insecurities. Lastly, too many people just don’t know who they really are and identify with a cause/belief/etc. that shall not, cannot ever be slighted.
That’s why you won’t see me scream and yell about so many causes. Do I like pediatric cancer? No. Am I dedicating my life to ending it? No. We will all die from something and often too soon (too soon is an impossible term to quantify). However, what is just as tragic is that many never truly live due to their hurts, fears, and insecurities. THAT is why I spend so much time trying to help people heal, love, and come together for one another.
You think that my efforts are pointless and think that other things I have said and posted prove me to be hypocritical? Well, now I’m offended.
Not really.