God of Pain: A Grumpy Sunshine College Romance (2) (Legacy of Gods)

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This is a very strange love. I admit that. You have to spend your whole life trying to get yourself right side up because we’re born upside down. We’re born with ourselves at the center. And this text is saying that this won’t make sense if you stay at the center of your life. If you are your treasure, this will be insanity. If God is your treasure, this will make sense. You’ll understand what love is because you understand glory. His glory is the center of your life. In other words, before there was any world, or any sin in the world that needed grace, God planned saving grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That means that God knew Adam would sin. He was already planning how he would save us.

I didn’t notice the post-colon title until writing this review; it is not just a “Legacy of Gods” book, but God of Pain is also a “grumpy sunshine college romance.” It makes it sound a bit sweeter than it actually is, and lord knows that Cray Cray was portrayed as a nearly mute grunter in the last book, so I was pleased to see he had a bit more going on than just Oscar living in the trash can in his head…. This world of pain and suffering exists because the horrors of physical evil and suffering are a parable of moral and spiritual evil — a parable of sin. And we need the parable because we don’t know and feel how ugly and outrageous our sin is.Nezarec had unwittingly been resurrected by the Traveler's terraforming power and conversed with the fireteam, goading them on throughout the raid. Amongst other things, Nezarec talked about aspects of themselves, the nature of terror and how he wished to express his newfound paracausal powers. These powers appear to have been augmented by the terraforming beam of Light that the Traveler shot, causing an immensely large growth to pierce the sarcophagus of Nezarec. It really feels like authors just press copy and paste when it comes to describing their anti-heroes: Bussing et al. used the Spiritual and Religious Attitudes in Dealing with Illness (SpREUK) questionnaire and the Adaptive Coping with Disease (AKU) questionnaire to discover if spirituality and religiosity are a relevant resource for 580 patients coping with chronic pain conditions. Fifty-eight per cent of patients were grounded on religion or spirituality and give meaning but not in the context of religion or spirituality. Fifty percent of them claimed that they were not religious, 32% of them religious but not spiritual, 8% of them spiritual but not religious and 18% of them both religious and spiritual. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that the internal sources of disease control such as Conscious and Healthy Way of Living and Positive Attitudes were the strongest predictors of a patient’s reliance on spirituality and religiosity. Non-religious and non-spiritual patients had significantly lower internal or behavioral coping styles, which may be related to a more closed minded attitude toward possibilities, less meaning and/or purpose seeking behavior, lower self efficacy, and a more negative approach towards life’s challenges. 27

Whitford et al. 19 questioned 449 Australians with pain and fatigue symptoms and found that the low faith group appeared to enjoy their life more than the high faith group. Beliefs about the nature of God run the gamut between a loving and a punishing God. Future research should include not only the presence or absence of a belief in a higher power, but also the type of beliefs the participant holds about God, since the valence of belief can affect mental and physical health outcomes. 19 In the study by Newberg et al. 20 negative beliefs and attitudes stimulate intense activity in the limbic system resulting in a flood of chemicals that often trigger feelings of fear, anger, and feelings of disconnection. Negative meaning making appears to diminish resilience leading to poorer coping abilities. The valence of spiritual and religious coping is critical to meaning making and a patients’ ability to cope with chronic pain. 20 While prayer is often considered a positive coping strategy, the content and valence of prayer can impact outcomes. Prayer, when used as a means to relinquish control and responsibility for pain solutions, can negatively impact disability and perceived self control. 21, 22 After being released from her Stasis prison, Eramis, the Kell of Darkness, was tasked by the Witness with collecting the pieces of Nezarec's corpse. [15] Through her research on these relics, Eido, Mithrax's daughter, discovered a reference to the "Curse of Nezarec" in an ancient dirge. The curse is alleged to drain the life of the user, though to what purpose is unknown. He is that which is end. That which covets sin. The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour. And He shall rise again." — Passage from "Of Hated Nezarec" Marcus Tullius Cicero, Nature of the Gods from the Treatises of M.T. Cicero translated by Charles Duke Yonge (1812-1891), Bohn edition of 1878. Online version at the Topos Text Project.

This book was crazy intense and insanely addictive, once I started listening I couldn't put it down!