It's Wednesday and I'm joining
Mia from The Chronicles of Chaos
Mia from The Chronicles of Chaos
&
Vashelle from Shelly's Cabaret
Vashelle from Shelly's Cabaret
for the bi-weekly link up:
This weeks' writing prompt is a pretty awesome topic, IMO.
There are tons of quotes about learning from pain and one of my favorites just happens to be:
"We can not learn without pain" 'Aristotle'
We all face painful situations that force us to grow - death, loss of a friend, loss of a job, graduating and leaving your friends, illness, divorce. We have so many of us have gone through some life changing event, that caused us a lot of pain, that now we can take as a life lesson. While I'd love to go on about this - I believe this writing prompt leads us into a different type of topic.
There are some things we will never understand until we are faced with them up close and personal.
I never understood infertility or how it could affect your life & your relationships. I never understood the longing of wanting a child that I couldn't have, I never understood the constant heartache, and I never understood what it was like being on that side of the thousands of women who were plagued with not being able to have a child. I didn't understand this until I was diagnosed with PCOS.
Until I had a child I heard about the instant love of a child. I heard how no matter how your birth went you'd be eager to get pregnant again & forget all the negative stuff. I heard all the stories about women loving being pregnant and how they enjoyed feeling their baby move around. I also have read a lot of amazing birth stories shared through blog posts. I could never fully understand or crasp what people meant until I had my son. The love - instant unconditional - couldn't be explained until I held my son for the first time.
A good friend of ours - his Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago. While we watched her battle cancer and go through those treatments - I couldn't understand what it was really like. We read up on the tests she had done & what chemo was like - but I can't say that I fully understand what she went through. She is a survivor, praise God! - and while reading up on everything helped me understand.. I'll, hopefully, never fully feel what she went through.
On a military wife level.
I never really understood the hardship of a deployment. The level of sacrafice our men and women give. Or the demand a deployment takes on our loved one. While I have always been very patriotic, I don't think I have fully understood what that meant until I married a service member. The insurance benefits make it seem like a glamorous life - and while it's not that different from a civilian family .. it is. It's not something you can really explain though. It's not something that people who don't live this life fully understand. "You knew he would deploy so why are you so sad?" You can't really answer that question and fully give a 100% answer until you are there and you know.
My point is..
pain and situations change us. They mold us into the people we are meant to be. Reading a article or blog post doesn't make us understand completely. It helps us have more insight and maybe a greater version of empathy BUT until we go through these things first hand we can never really understand. There are a thousand situations I hope & pray that I never fully understand but that doesn't mean that I look blindly the other way. I try to understand different situations and get as much knowledge as possible. With that being said I say again that I don't feel you can completely feel someone's pain until you go through it yourself.
A good friend of ours - his Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago. While we watched her battle cancer and go through those treatments - I couldn't understand what it was really like. We read up on the tests she had done & what chemo was like - but I can't say that I fully understand what she went through. She is a survivor, praise God! - and while reading up on everything helped me understand.. I'll, hopefully, never fully feel what she went through.
On a military wife level.
I never really understood the hardship of a deployment. The level of sacrafice our men and women give. Or the demand a deployment takes on our loved one. While I have always been very patriotic, I don't think I have fully understood what that meant until I married a service member. The insurance benefits make it seem like a glamorous life - and while it's not that different from a civilian family .. it is. It's not something you can really explain though. It's not something that people who don't live this life fully understand. "You knew he would deploy so why are you so sad?" You can't really answer that question and fully give a 100% answer until you are there and you know.
My point is..
pain and situations change us. They mold us into the people we are meant to be. Reading a article or blog post doesn't make us understand completely. It helps us have more insight and maybe a greater version of empathy BUT until we go through these things first hand we can never really understand. There are a thousand situations I hope & pray that I never fully understand but that doesn't mean that I look blindly the other way. I try to understand different situations and get as much knowledge as possible. With that being said I say again that I don't feel you can completely feel someone's pain until you go through it yourself.
That's what this prompt meant to me.. what does it mean to you?
