I don't think CF is a gift from God.

I believe the following things are the gifts given to be my God and the Universe:

1. My birth
2. My parents, CysticMommy and CysticDad
3. My siblings, CysticLady and CysticSibling
4. My best friend, S-Bestie.
4.5 My many mentors growing up and currently.
5. My laugh and each of the moments when I have had reason to use it.
6. My sense of humor which is an indirect gift from God, given to by through my Cparents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my Csiblings, and S-Bestie.
7. The town I grew up in.
8. My cat, B-Kitty.
9. My dog, Gracie, who has passed. She was a gift from God to my whole family.
10. My creativity.
11. My writings. The best things I have ever written just come to me. I do not even feel that I own them sometimes.
12. There is one thing that is a gift from God but I'm going to keep it private. But H-Mama knows what it is.
13. The men I have truly loved and the feeling of falling in love with them.
14. When I go to heaven or get to be an angel or am reincarnated nicely as a cat or something, that will be a gift too.

Conversely, I do not think the following things are gifts from God or the Universe. I believe that God and the Universe were obviously involved or aware of these things, perhaps they were discussed at some sort of "crappy things for CG" meeting, but I do not believe the following things are gifts, per se. (These are in response to the above)

1. The way that I will die, whether hit by a mack truck or otherwise.
2. Cystic Fibrosis
3. My sister, CysticLady, having to have Cystic Fibrosis TOO. Nor my brother being born in the middle of two CysticWomen, when he could've been born between two normal Women and that would've been enough for him- jeesh.
4. The friends I have lost over the years.
5. The people that don't like my laugh, though it is obnoxious. If you don't like somebody's laugh, you got to think about your attitude. Lighten up people. Obnoxious laughs (like mine) are double funny. You can laugh once at the joke, and once at me, and I won't even know it! I always secretly wonder if that is why people laugh so much when I say stupid things.
6. Ditto on people that don't like my sense of humor. I have found that they are usually humorless people in general.
(7-9. Nothing bad to say about my hometown or pets)
10. The inappropriate parts of my creative thinking and sense of humor, and my lack of control of said creative thinking and the expression thereof.
11. The fact that very few people read the things I write. I mean, God did not gift me a publicist or anything.
12. In terms of number 11, it is not a gift from God, always, to have this gift from God. (oooh....mysterious).
13. The men I have truly loved in vain.
14. I am not delving into this one. No way, man. Not on a blog. God could read it!

I don't think CF is a gift from God. I think it is a challenge from God, sent to develop my gifts and the gifts of those around me.

Food for thought...

Love, CG