I think you mean that some people have chosen the wrong way in life, and that may not make them bad pursay. You are saying the deeds are wrong, but the person isn’t necessarily bad. Is that what you mean Humlan?

What about people who torture others? And even get pleasure from it? These people have something evil in them. It doesn’t matter to me if they had a horrible childhood. Many people have had awful childhoods, but still manage to make the best of it as adults.

You might want to call bad people mentally instable,… but then they are mentally unstable bad people to me. I think they are frightening, for they have no conscience. Infact they get all hyped-up if their victim pleads for mercy. Hitler didn’t have a bad conscience either. For me he was the epitome of evilness.

Friends of ours are parents of a “bad” boy. Honestly, I never met anything like him before. He is now 5 years old, but from birth on he has been a terror for his parents. He literally gets an evil gleam in his eyes, and then, watch out. Either he’ll whack his little sister, pull the table cloth with all the dishes on it onto the floor, or just scream to make your hair stand on end. He’ll break out into a run at a shopping mall, just to kick some other innocent child. This kid is bad. There is no other way I can describe him. Oh, and he’s my God child to boot.

Just as 'God' is not the white bearded mass of a man doling out good, Satan is not this physical being we were taught to fear, i.e horns, tail, breath of fire, and the pitch fork!-really!. The Bible does say that devil can appear in many forms, even that of an angel, but in my believing, he is simply the opposing side of good spirit (God). I really don't like personifying Satan; don't even like capitalizing the name given to the evil spirit - it's like giving it importance)

Psalms is a book of songs. I think (my way of believing) is that the verses you might be referring to seem to be saying God will protect us. Because they are poems/songs the purpose is slightly different from, let's say, something Jesus said. Also, study the story of Job. There was little Godly protection on his behalf. Maybe your friend should be considered a 21st century Job. Hard, yes indeed, to frame it that way!

You are so faithful. More prayers for your friend from here.

humlan, can you point out where some of us mentioned "bad people?"
Hitler was bad, regardless. Everyone has bad thoughts, but someone hurting another by manifesting evil, in my book, makes that person bad.

my opinions

Jabber,
Sorry that I've arrived late to the party here but your post strikes a nerve. I've been in a heated debate with God the Father for several years now. The past five years of my life have felt like God's been peeling my onion, stripping away layer after layer of everything I knew, loved, held dear, found comfort in......I was furious at Him. After a lifetime of living what I believed to be a righteous life, giving freely of myself, being a devoted wife and mother, worked for a church for pennies, PTA mom, blah blah blah, my life suddenly turned upside down. Parents died, brother died, husband lost his mind and left, financial woes, a son in Iraq......wave after wave of craziness. The stress was eating me alive, and I mean that factually not figuratively. I kept asking myself, what did I do to deserve this crap? I played by all the rules as I'd been taught them in catholic school, lived a life of service, never took anything for granted.....so why? And then one day I just realized that there will never be an answer to that particular why. It was just my turn to suffer.....sometimes shit just happens. I don't think God is the author of my mess and I certainly don't think it's part of some divine "plan" as some Christians might believe. It's just a consequence of the fallen nature of humanity. And I don't say this in any defeatist way, I just had to reach acceptance of my situation and find a way to keep it from killing me. My kids tell me often that they don't think it's fair that I have to struggle so hard after years of working so hard.....but much as I hate cliches, no one ever told me life would be fair. I have learned a great deal during these past 5 years, about my nature and the nature of the universe. The most important thing I've learned is perspective....just when I start to feel like the most tortured creature on the planet, I meet someone who has struggled with hardships far worse than my own. In reaching out to that person, in offering love or comfort, I find my own wounds healing; I find a purpose in my own hardships. I can stand just about anything if at some point, I discover that there was some purpose served, some lesson learned; that my struggle wasn't in vain. In the last year or so, I have found that my path has crossed the paths of others who are just now dealing with things like bi-polar family members, the sudden death of a parent, cancer, a messy divorce, a child in harms way and in offering them support or comfort, I recognize that while God may not have been the author of my pain, He has helped me to find the lesson in it, and to hold the hand of another weary traveler as together, we heal one another. I'm sure I've said all of this in a rambling, messy sort of way, but I hope you are able to understand. I guess in a nutshell, God may have set the world in motion, but it is up to us to determine its direction.

Kathryn

Thank you for sharing your story and your viewpoint. I know what it is to struggle with the situations we find ourselves in and feeling like it is "just" too much to bear. I, too, have railed and fought and pushed and shoved, and wondered what I could have possibly done to "deserve" the situations I'm in. And as I've surrendered more, I've found the same thing you have...many others have crossed my path who have similar situations and my coping skills (although not always perfect) or my learnings from the situation have helped others cope with their situation. The synchronicities I find are amazing...and each time I share with someone I heal a bit more.

We were given "choice" as a gift...and although I sometimes wonder if it is a gift, it is what it is and I've learned and grown so much. It is my current reality...to believe I have choice and to act on it. I love Byron Katie's saying (paraphrased): You can argue with reality...and you only lose 100% of the time. Each time I do my rail at the world gig, this saying pops up, reminds me to look at the facts, and see how I can use the situation to learn more, give me, and heal more.

Again, my thanks for sharing and living and grieving and being. You are such a gift to each of us who gets to share your path.

In one of those funny coincidences, yesterday I received an email newsletter from a special forces organization that I subscribe to. The theme of the founder's message this month was "suffering". Not 10 minutes after responding to the suffering post here, I was reading his take on suffering and his response to it, clearly from a warriors perspective, but some very interesting thoughts and a few quotes, which I share here.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts" Winston Churchill

"Pain is temporary, it may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." Lance Armstrong

"For us warriors, knowing when to quit, retreat or yield from pain and suffering does not come easy and as it was with the Spartans each of us must come to that decision on his own. It is not in our nature as warriors to surrender to anything but we must know there will come a time when we will have to use courage to make that hard decision to stop and regroup to seek an alternative victory. Dave; former Special Forces soldier

"It requires more courage to suffer than to die." Napoleon

"Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things-whether health or a car or an old sense of self-has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers." Lance Armstrong

Oops posted too fast.....what I would like to close with is this

To all of my "warrior" women friends out there....I salute you, I embrace you and I hope to be here to journey with you, through the joys and the suffering as we seek an "alternative victory".

A perspective once shared with me by a woman minister who grew us as a missionary kid:

When people who are suffering ask, why me, her response was, why not you?

Now when hardships hit, I've learned to accept them as they are. This is a totally different perspective than the one with which I was raised.

Who do we think we are that nothing "bad" should ever happen to us.

I must say that I was raised in the Catholic church and it was there that it was implied that if you live your life a certain way, meaning according to God's plan, we could somehow side-step hardship. There is nothing further from the truth.

There an excellent book that I read recently called The Shack. It's about a man whose child is kidnapped and murdered. He is given the opportunity to meet with God the father, son and holy spirit for a weekend and asks the toughest questions about life and faith and the promises we are given. The author is brilliant with his answers.

If this topic has been of interest to you, I highly recommend this book.

Thanks for all the lovely reflections shared within this topic. I so love hearing other voices that speak to me, whether they are as I believe or not. They are all food for thought.

I should probably let good enough be good enough and give it a rest..but I can´t. I work with kids..have all my life. So I gotta tell you that your description of your godson..that 5 yr old boy..is something that I have seen before and can relate to. There are many mental and emotional conditions during childhood that are today attributed to very very tiny brain damage. We, today, do not have instruments sensitive enough to detect them..but we can detect them by the fact that something is missing in the brain tissue.

Since this child is only 5 yrs of age..if he should appear in my group of children..I would soon be allerting the "experts" that I work with at the large hospital in my area. They work as a team..a child neurologist, a pediatrician, a psychologist or psychiatrist, 2 teachers trained in working with special children and a family therapist (to help out the family and perhaps ascertain if there are some unhealthy patterns (most commonly, behavioral patterns) within the family that is uknown to them). The child would go thru examination..which takes about 4 weeks or more..and is done at the child´s level..with the parents also working with the experts..this is a criteria to have this done for the child..the parents much also be active and present. Because in my opinion..your godson is NOT evil..but has a mental problem. He is far too young to be "evil"..he is driven by something in his make-up that is missing. And he very very much needs help. If he were a child in my group, I would take this very very seriously. He is slowly dying inside while his environment..is unintentionally doing the "killing". EW..dear friend..this is quite a serious matter. There are so many disorders known today
which, if he be diagnosed properly..he could get help for. Today there are adults that have been diagnosed that are helping children with their syndrome..and giving lectures around the world about their problems and how they have learned to cope.

With love..to you, godmother and EW

P.S. EW..I must add that I have a certain syndrome in mind.when I read about your godson..but I don´t dare give a"diagnosis"..it´s not my field..altho I would probably mention my thoughts to the experts that I work with..as we know eachother quite well by now. Your godosn is not alone in his type of behavior..believe me..I would go as far to say that it is classic to a certain syndrome (combination of symptoms). Please try and get him some help..him and his poor family.

Hugs!

I don't know if people can be labeled "bad"; but what if they really are bad? When a Christian woman marries a "Christian" man and his children pretend to be sweet and kind and loving but the exact opposite is true, then to me that's bad. The lady in deep, deep is my "spiritual mom." I love her. And these past three years I've seen her cry, time and time again. I've seen her drugged. I've seen her suffer. She can't recover because she hasn't a house to go home to. And she does not deserve it, the misery befallen her. When humans deliberately torment another and steal from them and lie about them, to me that makes the evildoers bad! No one has the right to take another's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. All of this angel's civil rights have been stolen. Elder abuse is the perfect crime; she loves her husband and is protecting him by not snitching on his kids. Who can say that she didn't willing sign everything over to them: the house, car and investments. Be alert, people! Watch your aged loved ones!

I'm not asking why me Lord? I'm asking why her, Lord? I know GOD allowed JOB to lose everything! But the Bible says He'll repay double for your trouble. Job got everything back twofold!