We are ALL CHILDREN OF OUR HEAVENLY PARENTS!!!

There have been several research studies done about how depression/anxiety affect the personalities of those who suffer from them. One of the positive attributes that is typically seen in depressive people is an increased ability for empathy. This is a really beautiful thing that I have always been truly grateful for from this disease. Our trials shape us, they shape the people we become, and it brings me some measure of peace to know that this illness has helped me to better understand and relate the Dearly Loved Children of God that surround me.



I am sad to say that recently in my family I have heard a lot of mean, hurtful, racist things said about Mexicans.  I am not Mexican, I don't have any close family or friends that are Mexican, but I still found myself saddened, shocked, and angry to hear such hurtful things said so casually. It seems here in Utah that so many people want to blame everything on the Mexicans, because you know, they are all illegal immigrants. *rolling my eyes* Let's be honest here, there are terrible people of every race and nationality. There are also amazing, kind, wonderful people of every nationality. And that is just the point: Your race and nationality doesn't make you a bad (or good) person. And for once, I was grateful that I have suffered from this disease, because my overdeveloped sense of empathy just led me to think about what it must be like to be Latino in Utah. And then I read this amazing post by a friend of the blog who recently took a vacation in Mexico called You Could be Selling Trinkets in the Sun for a Living. In it he reminds us all that if you want to generalize some facts about Mexicans, how about generalizing the fact that they are some of the Hardest Working people I have ever encountered. Truly, I have known Mexican people who were maids, janitors, line cooks at McDonalds, landscapers, painters, whatever work they could find. They take the work, and they work harder and faster then  sometimes seems humanly possible. As a culture, I know very few other cultures that work harder. I am not saying the culture is perfect, from my limited observations it's a rather chauvinistic culture with some real tendencies for violence, but I am saying that that is the culture...Not the individual people.

And on this Sunday Sabbath it kind of makes me think of a little biblical story, about a man who was beaten and injured on the side of the road and his own countrymen with their money and influence passed him by. And the one who finally stopped to help him, was a lowly traveler from a neighboring country that was considered dangerous and "unclean". And that man, that "Good Samaritan" was who Jesus Christ spoke of with such great love and admiration. Christ's example clearly left no room for such hatred and ridiculous debasement of Children of God whom he equally loved.