Regarding being a salt and light, why is it that when people ask for prayers for physical healing, others would pray for them without any questions, and yet when one is in a toxic situation, one would say to just bear it as a cross?
I think both things can be done at the same time. we should always pray for healing, and we should always take steps to health (including avoiding illness and toxicity), but we also can bear things as a cross. We don’t need to go out LOOKING for crosses to bear, but those that have been given to us we can pick up and carry, with His grace.
Aren’t both physical ailments and toxic people or situations crosses? Why is it that it is okay to pray away for one, but not the other??
We should always pray for healing and deliverance, but we cannot always “pray away” things. It is clear that the OP has been praying about this for some time.
I ask because if you read the threads here or even on non-Catholic websites, the opinion is that you can’t change other people, they have to want to improve themselves.
I think this is beyond an opinion, it is a fact. We can only change ourselves. We may be able to influence others, but we can’t change other people. Investing life energy into things over which we have no control is ultimately exhausting and fruitless.
I don’t necessarily see staying in a toxic environment as a good thing for one’s mental and spiritual health, even if it means being the salt and the light. It’s one thing to remain because you can’t leave even if you want to, it’s another thing to stay just because, even if you have the liberty to leave.
I agree, and whenever possible, such situations should be avoided. If one can have a different living environment, or a different work environment, we should do so . I have been in several very toxic work environments. Some I could get out of quickly, some I had to endure for years.
To be like everyone else, to think feel and act like evrryone else.
This seems odd, since you are saying the people hurting you are mean/toxic. Why would you want to be like them?
And why be like “everyone else” instead of becoming the person God wants you to be?
Sometimes I am quiet and I get accused of being grumpy
Sounds like some DBT might be helpful!
This is really more their problem than yours. You don’t have to make it your problem.