Life in the Driver’s Seat (extended)

[Seraphim]

Tonight’s sunset

[Seraphim]

7 hours ago, maritalbliss86 said:

Aw Seraphim!!!!  We always have hope, right?  Hope of the eternal... if you're Christian, this sad, dejected life is not the end for us.  There are a lot of verses on Heaven you could look up, and it is SO encouraging.  

Being recepted by relatives, some you've never met becasue they were before you, having them all know you and receive you with open arms... it is incredibly moving and beautiful.

No.  Death is not the end for us at all.  It is an incredible, exciting new adventure.

An adventure that the Bible says will include no more tears.  No more sorrow or suffering (like that which is in this life).

Aw Seraphim... huge hugs!!!!  You're not alone, all your relatives who believed before you are waiting for you to end your race of your life well, to endure to the end well.  Your end will be rewarded with God Himself saying, "Well done, my good and faithful servant," like Paul describes.  

We always have Hope.

True, death is not the end of the journey. I am just realizing middle age brings a lot of realizations that life is not always what we think it is. Just living this long brings a bird’s eye advantage to some things. 
 

On death , it is not the end of the journey , I am about to sound very strange to many and I think I have told parts of this story before but I will briefly skim it. I have been witness to the preternatural and supernatural  world as an empath. I have seen angels and demons and ghosts. I have had experience of God directly while experiencing extremely severe pain. I have been saved by an Angel. There is no end. Energy doesn’t end, it only changes. 

[maritalbliss86]

12 hours ago, Seraphim said:

True, death is not the end of the journey. I am just realizing middle age brings a lot of realizations that life is not always what we think it is. Just living this long brings a bird’s eye advantage to some things. 

I think there is a real danger when you get to middle age, from what my mentor and a couple of other people I know have said, to look back on life and feel jaded or depressed or like none of it mattered anyway.  It's a real thing.  It is very easy to start out well, but it's actually hard to end life well.

This was from my sweet mentor... it's hard in middle age not to become bitter or tempted to drift away from thinking God is good.  You see so much by that time that just makes you feel life isn't worth it, or that there is no point.  Ironically, I think Christians have it harder, because they actually care about doing good to others (who aren't good to them), so the atheist or otherwise non-religious person who lives solely for themselves, they can sometimes go happily into middle age not caring at all about people they probably should care more about.  They don't care and block themselves off from that pain or suffering, and so they actually are happier looking out only for themselves.  The Christian can't really and truly live like that, it isn't in line with their belief system.  They can block themselves off from people who have rejected them (we're on that journey) and eventually find peace living life as if they don't exist (I can't wait for that part LOL), but there will always be that temptation as one ages to feel bitterness or resentment over things like that for the Christian.  When you love and are rejected a lot, you will be tempted to resentment.  You can overcome it, but I think that temptation can get harder as one ages, according to my mentor, and depending on your current life situation.

I think the hedonistic non-religious pay for their rejection of people, caring etc. in other ways than becoming bitter and jaded in old age... and what I mean by that is I think they never know the absolute joy of getting to minister to others and seeing it pay off in some lives, because they aren't putting themselves out there helping the poor, the widow, the destitute.  If they did that in their youth, they stopped because they found it wasn't really helpful or beneficial to themselves long-term... it only took from them, which living life in a hedonistic way, tells them is not right, they need to look out for themselves more.  Their past giving of themselves only increased their feelings of not being able to really help stop pain in the world.  Instead of realizing that will never be possible, there will always be pain and suffering in this world, they internalize that feeling of helplessness and put a stop to their caring of others so much (and pay a heavy price later on).

So by middle age, they try not to care anymore about anyone like that.  They know they can't really stop all the pain in the world, and so they literally give up, and only live for themselves.  They are happier in a superficial way, more carefree possibly, but they're also closed off, disconnected, cold (to the poor, orphans, etc.), and not fully developed and mature in a very real sense of humanity.  We're not supposed to live that way, so they lose something of themselves by that.

I've known some older Christians who made it a point not to become jaded or bitter with time (60's, 70's, 80's), and the difference between them and the Christians that fall into temptation to get dragged down into pessimistic thinking, is the ability to not lose one's remarkable joy in life.  And it is something remarkable to behold.  When you see a person like that, they are so real... so mature in the sense that their happiness is not superficial at all.  They have a deep abiding joy that sustains them throughout their own ups and downs of life, something that has taught them how to be content, truly happy, in all situations in life, because they can do and handle all things (anything) through God who gives them strength.  Your joy of the Lord is your strength. 

I'm probably not the right person to be saying this, since I'm only 34... I haven't lived this to be able to say it's truly personally.  But I have seen it, and those people's witness to it being possible is more than enough for me to understand the truth behind it.  I've always tried to kind of collect older people like that.  Women whose lives I wanted to model mine after, women who obviously succeeded at having a good marriage (still passionate and in love decades down the line!!!) and raised good, strong and mature children, I've collected them as mentors because they've done this already, and their insight really helps me be able to put my own ridiculous thoughts into long-term perspective.

Sorry to write so much!  It's an interesting topic!

 

[Seraphim]

I think I am just irritated with a culture that states you need to be shut up or erased if you don’t believe everything I do. 

[Seraphim]

Some pictures from our 3 hour walk today. We got our son outside for three hours as well. Major achievement. He is very sensory avoidant. 

[maritalbliss86]

21 hours ago, Seraphim said:

I think I am just irritated with a culture that states you need to be shut up or erased if you don’t believe everything I do. 

Unfortunately, I think the censorship is going to get worse.  Communist Russia silenced Christians (or believers of different faiths) by killing them, or imprisoning them for years to decades. 

That's the natural progression of what censorship does, eventually it's punishable by imprisonment or death.

[Seraphim]

3 hours ago, maritalbliss86 said:

Unfortunately, I think the censorship is going to get worse.  Communist Russia silenced Christians (or believers of different faiths) by killing them, or imprisoning them for years to decades. 

That's the natural progression of what censorship does, eventually it's punishable by imprisonment or death.

Censorship, exactly. 

[Seraphim]

So, I just paid for the advocate to write my son’s T2201 . This is our fourth attempt for the DTC. She said he has a very good chance of getting the credit which my husband would claim against his taxes. It is the last a available credit I can get for my son. 

[maritalbliss86]

2 hours ago, Seraphim said:

Censorship, exactly. 

It's the new Cancel Culture.  

[Seraphim]

2 minutes ago, maritalbliss86 said:

It's the new Cancel Culture.  

Yup. 

[Seraphim]

I had to apply for the federal support credit this morning for the kids that are in quarantine. Sigh. Another tax season messed up . 

[Jibralta]

I had to go on extension because of all the changes this year--they were still being announced, right in the middle of tax season.

[Seraphim]

32 minutes ago, Jibralta said:

I had to go on extension because of all the changes this year--they were still being announced, right in the middle of tax season.

It is so crazy. I have lost half my income because of kids in quarantine. This week is March break which has been moved to April. Then I doubt the kids are going back after. Our Covid numbers are just too high the highest they’ve been since the pandemic started. They have extended the Canada economic recovery to 36 payments or 32 payments of $900 for two weeks. Before it was 26 payments but as the pandemic just goes on and on and on they have to extend the support. But I have seen so many businesses close it’s ridiculous. 
 

I handed my taxes over to my accountant a week ago. We have until April 30 at midnight to file. I don’t know what I owe yet . 
 

What does it mean extended ? 

[Seraphim]

Schools closed indefinitely here in Ontario. 

[Seraphim]

On 4/11/2021 at 4:35 PM, Seraphim said:

So, I just paid for the advocate to write my son’s T2201 . This is our fourth attempt for the DTC. She said he has a very good chance of getting the credit which my husband would claim against his taxes. It is the last a available credit I can get for my son. 

It will take until approx June 12 to get the forms from the advocate . 

[Cheetarah]

8 hours ago, Seraphim said:

Schools closed indefinitely here in Ontario. 

Oh no!  You guys are closing back up?  They started up some mitigations last week here.  

[Seraphim]

6 hours ago, Cheetarah said:

Oh no!  You guys are closing back up?  They started up some mitigations last week here.  

We started a stay at home order about a week ago and the kids right now are on a spring break that was moved from March. They decided yesterday to close indefinitely. 
 

Our vaccine roll out isn’t going fast enough. We just can’t secure enough vaccine and our rate of infection is now climbing faster than yours is. The latest death in my area was a 35 year old. They have actually started moving patients around to different hospitals that can take them and the Premier instituted an emergency order to move patients to a hospital anywhere in the province that can take them without their consent. It is really bad here right now. 

[Cheetarah]

19 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

We started a stay at home order about a week ago and the kids right now are on a spring break that was moved from March. They decided yesterday to close indefinitely. 
 

Our vaccine roll out isn’t going fast enough. We just can’t secure enough vaccine and our rate of infection is now climbing faster than yours is. The latest death in my area was a 35 year old. They have actually started moving patients around to different hospitals that can take them and the Premier instituted an emergency order to move patients to a hospital anywhere in the province that can take them without their consent. It is really bad here right now. 

Oh that’s horrible!  I know we are going to have a slow up in distribution.  There was a human error with a batch of 15 million single dose vaccines(it never got to people, it was found during testing).  Many people who had appointments at places that disperse that vaccine have received cancellations.  

It feels like the hunger games out there, doesn’t it?  It is so crappy.  We have been seeing younger deaths as well, and many more cases in younger people versus seniors(I am hoping that’s because a significant populous of the elderly are vaccinated, at least partially, here).  

 

[Cheetarah]

This just popped up on my news notifications too.  That’s the one that had the human error, too.  

[Seraphim]

20 minutes ago, Cheetarah said:

This just popped up on my news notifications too.  That’s the one that had the human error, too.  

Yeah, AstraZeneca has that warning too but that is what they are giving to my age group here. I just wish we could secure enough vaccine. We are however trying to ramp up to make our own vaccines . Canada used to be a power house of vaccines in the 50’s . 

[Seraphim]

1 hour ago, Cheetarah said:

Oh that’s horrible!  I know we are going to have a slow up in distribution.  There was a human error with a batch of 15 million single dose vaccines(it never got to people, it was found during testing).  Many people who had appointments at places that disperse that vaccine have received cancellations.  

It feels like the hunger games out there, doesn’t it?  It is so crappy.  We have been seeing younger deaths as well, and many more cases in younger people versus seniors(I am hoping that’s because a significant populous of the elderly are vaccinated, at least partially, here).  

 

I can only imagine other countries without firmly established infrastructure and regulations and supply chains etc . It would be apocalyptic. But you are right it has become a dog eat dog world and people are VERY on edge. I keep R home now as he has been physically attacked just going to the grocery store. I am too afraid to let him out . 

[Cheetarah]

9 minutes ago, Seraphim said:

I can only imagine other countries without firmly established infrastructure and regulations and supply chains etc . It would be apocalyptic. But you are right it has become a dog eat dog world and people are VERY on edge. I keep R home now as he has been physically attacked just going to the grocery store. I am too afraid to let him out . 

Oh my goodness.  Poor R.  How is he handling that?  Is he okay? 

[Seraphim]

5 minutes ago, Cheetarah said:

Oh my goodness.  Poor R.  How is he handling that?  Is he okay? 

He has been very mentally distressed this entire time. It has been so hard on everyone. There is this fellow in town who particularly targets him when he sees him anywhere. He calls him “ Bleeping R word” The last time R had him ejected from the grocery store and the guy waited outside to attack him. R kicked his knees out from under him and then the guy tried to hit R with his truck. Now I am too afraid to let him go anywhere without me. 
 

He is so broken down too because he has only seen his friends like 5 times since this all started. Lucky he can call and text them. 

[Seraphim]

My brain is getting seriously overwhelmed again. It needs sleep and rest. 

[Seraphim]

Almost 400 days of this crap. I feel like I am going to run around screaming. I have to hold it together for the littles .