
Does God making us mortal, though we are meant to be built in Their image, give us more purpose?
We are flawed, but does that not teach empathy and compassion? If we were all "perfect," what would the world look like?
I don't have answers.
But I've often thought about the idea that you want better for your children, right?
So what if God, being all-knowing and immortal, thought:
"Huh, it's kind of boring to know everything and live indefinitely. I want my children to be able to experience learning, and to be mortal so as to stir them from complacency. And if they find purpose in studying and worshiping me, so be it. But I hope in their studies they discover that the thing I want most is for them to feel loved, and that they perpetuate that among their own people. To be like me is to love unconditionally and want better for others."
The fact that I'm mortal and only have so many years to give this community of people I was born to has never escaped me. Though I haven't always felt as connected to God as my religious upbringing would warrant, I feel my relationship with God has never actually ended or gone on hiatus. We just haven't always seen eye to eye. You fight with your parents, right? They want one thing for you and you want something else. You want something they don't understand because you grew under different circumstances, and you clash.
For a brief time in my life, between the onset of my anxiety and depression and the hurtful end of my previous engagement, I was disillusioned. It was like I'd grown up idolizing my Father only to find his flaws. But, with God, it wasn't really that They had flaws I'd discovered. I was upset because I didn't understand.
I knew before I joined the club of the perpetually anxious and sad that people suffered from anxiety and depression. But I didn't understand why I now had to be one of them.
Long before I encountered mental illness, I had (and still have) what is colloquially called HS — an acronym for hidradenitis suppurativa.
My HS took hold when I was 13. Many women who suffer from it start to see symptoms around puberty.
Whoo! Menstruation AND a painful skin disease? How'd I get so lucky?
At 13, however, HS was just this disgusting, painful, annoying thing that I dealt with. I didn't seek out meaning. And I didn't even try to throw the blame for my suffering on our omnipresent fall guy, God. HS was just in my life.
Later, as my suffering compounded and I was anxious and depressed and constantly in physical pain from my skin disease, I still didn't necessarily blame, but I questioned.

Until about last July.
Around the same time that I emerged from my depression over being newly single and heartbroken, my relationship with God improved again.
On the surface, it was like I'd gone from depressed to totally full of myself overnight. At some point I had the realization that if my ex wasn't the person meant for me, then that person was still out there. That gave me hope. I also had the renewed realization that I am pretty great all by myself.
And, eventually, I remembered that those facts are made possible by God. God created me, just as They created possibility in my life.
Since then that knowledge has only been compounded on and my faith reaffirmed. It wasn't immediate but a few months later that I truly realized why I have been dealt the card I have health-wise.
In October 2018, S and I started Millennial Pink, without any expectations even really that a lot of people would read it. We just needed an outlet, and hoped it could be more.
The first time I posted something and received comments back from people about how my story spoke to them, I was reminded of my purpose. My meaning in life is not only to bear witness to God, but to bear witness to the human experience as provided by Them.
I feel like my purpose is to give hope through shared experience. And if that can have a positive impact on even one person, I'll feel successful.
xo B
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