A Larger Perspective

Often, when you're feeling like the lowest creature on the planet if you look beyond yourself you'll find someone a whole lot worse off than you. Two of these people have been brought to my attention that makes me mentally slap myself and say, 'stop wallowing, you're well off'.
The first is a cousin of mine who has a disease where she literally cannot stop eating. She weighs upwards towards three hundred pounds and may never be able to survive without a keeper. It isn't even certain how long she will live if she doesn't find a way to cope. She is three years older than I and will never have things that other people don't even consider. She won't get married, won't be able to find social contact easy. She won't have children, or hold a job, or live a normal life. and people will blame her and hate her for something she can't even control.
The other is my (ex?) neighbor; the one I grew up with during my childhood. She spent her married life with a greedy, self-centered jerk who figures now that she's past her prime and he's having a mid-life crisis its time to dump the old wife and trader her in for a newer version.
She spent so many years on birth-control she will never have children (he never wanted them, always put it off). She's beyond the age of hopefully finding someone who deserves her; getting remarried a slim, slim chance. What does she have to look forward too? She is extremely intelligent (an engineer) but now that she's on the other side of 45 what will the rest of her life be? With no family to visit her, no kids to watch grow, deemed 'past her prime'?

I don't know what's going to happen to them but I can pray for them. Now I know exactly what its like to be on the other side of the fence. I was that person who got hit. I was that person who people ask 'what the hell happened to her? why didn't she live up to her full potential? what a loser'. or worse yet the pity - 'did you hear what happened to her? God, poor thing.'
a wider perspective, a different viewpoint; its pretty important to look beyond yourself. and pray.