God help us all

[Vellincharm]

Just that really. So many awful things happening all the time. Too much for me recently, and if you are an atheist I apologize.

When I was a child my brothers and I would spend the summer with our grandparents. They used to tell us stories after lunch. Your post has reminded me of one my grandma used to tell. My grandad was a coal miner. It was a protected industry so he remained in the pit rather than going to fight. He worked nights. She used to sit in the dark ,under the stairs, with my mum( a tiny baby) in her arms as planes flew over. She said to me "I used to pray and pray that we would still be alive in the morning when your grandad came home". They taught me a huge amount and the way I live my life ( bread making, gardening, making things, looking after my grandchild, is how they lived. Turn off the noise from outside Op. You can't save everything ,everywhere. Pick something that lifts your soul and focus on it. My son and DIL moved into their new house 15 minutes up the road last week. I picked a huge bouquet of flowers from my garden to take when I visit today. Find your joy.

God doesn't appear to do very much to prevent these things but you as a person can focus on what you can control.

Help yourself, and if you want to, look for ways to help others, no matter how small. Don't wait for a higher being to intervene.

I do think social media and having the world news in our hands via phones is unhealthy.
I recently spent a week in America. I was apprehensive as I live and work in a bubble of GC, climate change/ drug problems and penal policy.
I don’t know whether the data costs are too high there or it’s cultural, but no-one was on their phones. Teenagers chattered animatedly, no tinny music or podcasts, no political chat. We sat on a beach watching fireworks and apart from me taking a few photos it was screen free, everyone focused on the present, everyone friendly. The world in real life was nothing like the world in my phone.

You are part of the problem - you are apologising to strangers for believing in God. Pathetic.

Completely agree.

I'm not offended at all. I do however find it incredible that people can still believe in a higher being, despite all the awful things that happen in the world. But somehow that's not an acceptable thing to say usually.

Try going back to - say - 1940. Or 1917. Or any year before that. Death, war, disease, poverty, child abuse, no human rights, women as second class citizens ...... life is better now than it has ever been, at least in Western developed countries like the UK. People just fail to understand history.

I studied history to masters level and I'm always so grateful that I was able to. Because it really helps locate ourselves and the modern world in something bigger. And in many ways very grateful for modern life in the UK.

Thanks to everyone for your replies. Even the rude ones.
I am not a religious person at all, just how I felt yesterday due to life events and watching too much TV and news.
I don't think we have it worse than previous generations by any stretch. Medical advances in the last 30 years are incredible as are social reforms and human rights.
Great advice from some posters to turn off social media and the TV for a while.
Along with counting myself very lucky for what I do have. Great husband and daughters. Nice home and can pay my bills, not much left after.
There are people in dire straits who are really struggling.
Off now to give myself a kick up the ar*e.

If there is a god I don't think it's interested in helping us.

I'm in my late 50s and every decade since about 1980 there have been years where it feels like this.
Honestly just give yourself a break from the news and SM. We have no control over pretty much any of it anyway.

Nothing has changed just reporting has changed. If you want to really feel helpless and put your life into perspective read newspaper archives back as far as you like. People don't change. Take a step back and touch grass for a bit or if it's really bad speak to a therapist.

For everybody who says this, there's a believer. Things are balanced, just like they always have been. Shit is happening to one person, and another person is having a great day.

We can always choose to see the good or the bad, and that's what changes: what we look at, and what we're shown. The reason kids played out in the streets until more recent years is because we didn't have journalists reporting on every child abduction case all over the world, constantly. The bad new was there, we just weren't immersed in it.