The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

   What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!  What does that even mean?   Quora says that the phrase or cliché “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, was originally penned by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book Twilight and Arrows, and it was used as a motto for Hitler’s Nazi youth camps .  He wrote a similar line in a later book entitled Ecce Homo,  just before he went completely insane.   Umm, that's not a motto I want to adopt.  Furthermore . . .  In our case, John's  trauma did kill him.  His pain did not make him stronger.  In fact, it was more than he could bear and it led, eventually, to his accidental overdose. So I guess he wasn't  strong enough , huh?    And now, his trauma has become our trauma.  His pain will forever be our pain.  His death has become our instant replay.  His death is what we try to keep held tightly behind our walls.  His death has affected who we are and what we do. It has infiltrated every fiber of o

Before John died, I had a 3 a.m. conversation with the Lord one night.  I knew about the drugs.  I knew what that meant.  I had been pleading for his life, for his healing, for his willingness to get help, for his trauma - that he would accept counseling, try meds for depression, anything...something.  As his mom, my heart was broken, I didn't know what to do, and God quietly asked: "Do you trust me?"   Do you trust me either way?   Do you trust me if the answer isn't what you were hoping for?  If the outcome isn't the answer, isn't the solution you were hoping for?  Will you trust that I know the whole picture?  That I am the creator of the universe and that John is my child first? I cried for hours before I answered.  I begged and pleaded and I knew that I had to surrender.  I finally said "yes, I trust you no matter what.  I trust you with John's life and I trust you with mine."  On mornings like this one, where it seems like