Annoying Optimism

I avoid dealing with people who've not been through pain. It’s nothing I have against them. I just cannot relate to them. The parts of me that I need to have known, touched and need to have fellowship are tied up not in the successes of my life but in the struggles of my life. For TMH has done more through my struggles than he has ever done through my successes and if you look carefully at my successes, they are made out of the ingredients of my struggles; and you can never know my successes until you understand my struggles. My struggles are the pathway that led me into my successes. If you have never had anything to die in your life, you have the kind of optimism that is annoying. Your preaching is not balanced by failure. You do not know what I am until you have been where I have been. Do not sit there and tell me to take it, you do not understand. Just because you read some books and took a psych class does not mean you are ready to deal with the issues in my life.' ~ T.D Jakes