Don't be an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge hater!

I accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge this past Monday night.

As I said in the video, I heartily accepted this challenge.  Why?   For those suffering with ALS. For those like Anthony Carbaja. Watch his four minute video before reading any further. Don't cheat. You have to watch it to really understand and appreciate what I'm about to say.  Watch it:

Now, how do you NOT accept the challenge after watching that?  Did you hear what he said?

"I am so so grateful.  You have no idea how every single challenge makes me feel.  Lifts my spirits. Lifts every single ALS patient's spirits." - Anthony Carbaja 

Translation: When you complete the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and share it with family and friends, you lift the spirits of those suffering from this horrific disease.

Conversely, I imagine that every time a person posts an article deriding the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it does quite the opposite. It crushes every single ALS patient's spirits.  Would you rather be a part of that?

Sadly, the spirit of an ALS suffer is kept low as there is much that adds insult to the injury of an ALS diagnosis.  Anthony points out one such insult in his moving video.  It comes from the pharmaceutical companies. Because making drugs for ALS suffers wouldn't be a profitable venture, they do not invest time or money into ALS research.  Through their inaction, these companies are saying that ALS suffers aren't worth saving.

They aren't worth it!?  How can another human being NOT have worth?

Via the Ice Bucket Challenge I say to Anthony and all ALS suffers, "You are worth it!  You are worth the water, the time, the efforts, and the money spent in bringing awareness to your suffering and in bringing hope to your despair. You are worth it!"

If you don't want to complete the challenge, that's okay.  If you would rather not help bring awareness to this devastating disease, if you would rather not give an ALS suffer a glimmer of hope in his or her darkness, that is your choice.  But I would respectfully ask that you not share any articles or blog posts or memes that would steal away their hope during this time of recognition.

For those of you willing to complete the challenge, thank you!  Whether you give money to ALS or not, you are still contributing a great deal!  As Anthony implied, this is a lonely disease: "No one wants to talk about it." Those that suffer with ALS suffer alone.  Thank you for helping them feel less like an outcast, rejected and forsaken.  Thank you for helping them feel loved.

Today's forget-me-not: Don't be a hater! #love

1st Corinthians 12:4-8 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”