See there?
You are blessed with the advantage.
You have nowhere to go but up.
The 'haves', whoever they are, can easily become complacent.
All need prayers, guidance
Most do not pray that prayer
Most do not accept that guidance
Racism is just another form of abuse.
Here is some of the hatred I have faced in my life. My old man's father did in a drunken boating accident when he he was little and he developed the belief that the guy his father was drinking with murdered his father because only one of them made it back to shore when they were caught several hundred yards off shore when the storm hit. That happened on Lake Superior and waves can easily reach 15 to 20 feet in moments. That man then married his mother some years later and when drunk would beat her up. The old man put a stop to that by pointing his hunting rifle at him and telling him he was a dead man if he took another step. From that he developed a pathological hatred of the man.
I developed a great friendship with my grandpa and because of that the rest of my family literally hated me. I didn't know the history as no one had ever told me but that made no difference. I became the target of severe emotional abuse because of it.
Here are a couple of examples of it.
when I was in the first grade we went on an after chuch picnic with friends. These people had two adopted daughters and one of them was my first girlfriend. It was between a 15 and 30 minute drive to where we were going and on the way I realized I had to go to the bathroom really bad.
I was born with a weak sphincter and have always had to go when I had to go. If I didn't I messed my pants. So I started begging an pleading to stop so I could go. My old man refused to stop and began yelling at me about it. I finally give up and am sitting there crying because I know I'm going to be humiliated in front of my girl friend. I hold it as lonfg as I can and then it just forces its way out. The smell spreads through the car and my old mah goes ballistic. His face is a deep read. His veins in his face and neck are standing out and he is screaming at me that the only reason I messed my pants is that I was mad he wouldn't stop.
We get where we are going and I just sit in the car. That enrages him even more and he's screaming at me to get out. The old lady sees our friends staring at what is happening and gets his attention and motions to them. My old man is suddenly all smiles and walks over to them and starts talking. I just sit there in the car wondering what is coming next. A few minutes later the old man comes back smiling like a chessy cat and tells me to get into the front seat so he could take back to town and clean up. We take off and the old man is cracking one juke after another. I'm freaking out as it was like nothing had ever happened. I'm finally so scared of him I lean forward in my seat and look at his face. What I saw there scared me so bad I have no memory of the entire round trip until we are pulling back into the picnic area. His eyes were unfocused and had a thousand yard stare and his irises had changed color from pale blue to white.
I can give you instance after instance of this over the years. I'll tell you one more that took place in my mid twenties.
the old man had a post peeling business and asked me to work for him because all his help was lazy. I felt sorry for him so I went to work for him. This was in the 70s and he was paying the three guys $8, $9, and $10 an hour. He hired me at $7 and as I had no experience I figured that was fair enough. In 4 weeks all three of those guys had gone down the road and I was doing the work of all three. In a couple of weeks he and I alone were putting out 50% more production than all four of them had.
I began thinking about a raise because I figured I had earned one and the old man wasn't offering one We're driving down the road and I bring it up by asking for what was only a very small part of his increased profits. He was saving $800 a week in wages and making several thousand a month in increased profit. I asked for $1/hour and he went insane. He started throwing backhanded punches at me. I was catching his fists and slowing him down as much as possible until he finally stopped trying to hit me. And all this time he's driving.
So how many of you faced that kind of abuse at the hands of anyone, family or not. Think that would have affected you in any way? Think that would have stopped you from both forming and reaching life goals?
Tell me the horrific abuse you suffered at the hands of other people that just stopped your life cold so you couldn't do what you wanted to with your life. Come on. Tell me all about it. Tell me how people outside your family and circle of friend stopped your life cold be being unfriendly and saying hurtful words to you.
Know what I think? I don't think a one of you will have the courage to answer