You offer up your suffering to God in thanks for him sacrificing his son on the cross for our sins.

I don't get it. Suffering as a gift? How do you do that? However, "suck it up and shut up", I get.

Catholic logic does not fit reality.

Basically, nothing we suffer can ever be as great as what Christ suffered. So, you think about how much he suffered and offer your suffering up to him as a thank you gift.

~ma to Jilli and Sox!

Right? When someone says "You're a better person than me." I want to ask them wtf they think they would do if mac was their child. Like what? they just wouldn't parent him.

Now I am horribly certain I have said this to msbelle, and if so, what I meant (and maybe many others) is a badly expressed "This seems so hard, and I have the dreadful certainty were I in your position, I wouldn't be dealing with the stress nearly as well. You are doing so well, so go team you! I suck at life!"

However, I am SURE I have said "You're a better person than me" to some person dealing with an awful SO or boss or parent, and what I meant was "Because I would have nutted them." (But usually I just say "Dude, I would have nutted them."

I don't get it. Suffering as a gift? How do you do that?

Don't you remember the creamed corn on Twin Peaks? They ate your suffering in the Red Lodge.

Basically, nothing we suffer can ever be as great as what Christ suffered.

Ha! That's highly bullshit for the Catholic church considering some of the tortures they dreamed up for the Inquisition.

What Erin said with the nutting. And the desperate trying to find a way to resolve the situation with less me. Running away like a chickenshit and being avoidant is totally an option.

I am running away to my bed. Trying for more hours this time round. I can't keep crying in my car this week too.

My mother used to drive me batshit with the old "offer it up" if anything went wrong.

HAHAHAHAH! I went to 12 years of Catholic school and one of my closest friends is an Irish Catholic librarian. We bandy about offer it up in a sarcastic way all the time.

Suffering as a gift?

Well gifts are meant as a hardship and a sufferance in some ways. Or at least as a sacrifice, something given, which implies that it's something that is a loss to the giver. I had a big revelation about this last Christmas. That the reason we celebrate Christmas with gifts is to acknowledge what Christians originally saw as the original gift and sacrifice.

I'm not explaining well. It made more sense 9 months ago and came about because of an NPR story on a children's choir.

Mostly if suffering and sacrifice weren't part of gifts then that O. Henry story wouldn't exist.

Running away like a chickenshit and being avoidant is totally an option.

Not in my situation. And most likely not in msbelle's either. And not really in yours either.

No one is superhuman. As sara point out, we all just get up each day and do the work of living.

I try, and sometimes fail, at not ever saying "I don't know how you do it." Realistically, it may not be my choice so I really don't get it. But I've had examples from friends, or I've gone through my own spells of other to which I know, you just deal. You do it. Here even , people marvel at what I do on weekends/weekdays. Well, hell. Me too. There was a place in my life that was unthinkable. And there wasn't guilt involved at not doing, I just wasn't mentally able to. I'm at a better place, I can now, and that surprises even me. I just wish all my friends could arrive there, where things unthinkable are possible.

Mostly if suffering and sacrifice weren't part of gifts then that O. Henry story wouldn't exist.

Gift of the Magi, I assume? I hated that story. They both gave up something they loved, for nothing. At least she could grow her hair back.