Christianity

If you look at the core of Christianity, who would WANT to refute it? Love everyone, yourself included. Treat all people with honor, dignity, and respect. Develop patience, humility, and self-control. Give generously, serve willingly, and live to be a blessing to others so that you can enjoy your life to the full. Unfortunately, throughout history, Christians have sucked at doing these things. But they are the foundation of the Christian faith, what we strive to attain. If Christians would start loving other people the way they’re supposed to instead of walking around judging and condemning everyone, I think there would be a lot fewer people knocking Christianity.

Happy

I’ve struggled with severe depression since I was eight years old, so maybe I’m not the best person to talk about how to be happy. But people who are naturally happy don’t know what it takes to be happy because they just already are. It’s expected, assumed, taken for granted. I’ve had to work to be happy. I’ve had to work hard at it. Happiness does not come naturally to me at all.
The same holds true for healthiness. I’ve been sickly all my life. I have terrible environmental allergies that make me feel like I’m sick even when I’m not. My head is always stuffy, my sinuses clogged, my ears itch like crazy, and I’m continually fatigued.
I also have gas. Flatulence may be a funny topic for most, but for me it equals pain. I get tremendous cramping in my chest, abdomen and shoulders. Plus, it can be extremely embarrassing when you let out a massive toot, especially in the presence of mixed company.
A laundry list of hypochondriac tendencies and actual abnormalities plague me. My spine is continually out of alignment. My back, neck, and shoulders crack incessantly, as do the rest of my joints, except the elbows. For some reason, I’ve never had trouble with needing to pop my elbows.
But everyday I’m grateful that my discomforts aren’t more severe. I could have a life-threatening food allergy or rheumatoid arthritis. I’m totally thankful that I’m not allergic to peanuts especially. I love peanuts and peanut butter and other foods that are manufactured with the same equipment as peanuts. I would probably not know what I was missing if I were to have the allergy from early childhood. But I’ve met people with peanut allergies before, and I don’t envy them. The extreme measures they go through to ensure they don’t ingest peanuts I wouldn’t want to have to deal with.
We each have our own cross to bear.