Introduction to HARD TIMES ARE EASY TO COME BY A Pilgrim's Process

Ever since childbood I have borne the stigma of being "different." Physically I have never been very graceful, a fact you aren't allowed to forget as a girl (or as a girl becoming a woman) and not because I could (always) help being clumsy, uncoordinated, shaky.
Epileptic.
Perhaps I was overprotected. I know that there were taunts from school-mates and that I became a loner.
In grade school I fought. Literally. In high school I withdrew. I became a scholar, it being a socially acceptable alternative. In college I broke (another story).
Finally I came to see that God didn't lay this on me to cramp me, but to temper me, to give me an object to overcome and to enable me to accept and have some understanding of others who are in some way "different."
I could not understand until I had accepted. I had to repent of my anger and accept my "thorn," my lack of wholeness-in-myself before I was free to be (becoming) whole in God.

Psalm 139 and 2 Corinthians 1 are both passages which have been among my supports on the subsequent journey.