Many people wonder "why do bad things happen to good people?" but I wonder, why do bad things happen at all? I don't care if you're a good person or a bad person, bad days are just plain old bad days, and we all hate them.
Maybe it is true that "bad" things happen so that we can know the "good" in life. Any church-goer, or someone with a parent or grandparent who was a church-goer have heard the same thing before... but maybe there's something to it. In The Quest for Joy, Barbara Workman stated, " We may not feel deeply enough to know joy unless our hearts have been hollowed out by sorrow. A heart may not be big enough to know real joy until it has been stretched and pulled by trials and hard things." Maybe it is true. Maybe, just maybe, it really is true that without having your heart ripped out of your chest you won't realize just how much you can fit in that beautiful little muscle. Maybe being thrown down the metaphorical stairs of life, and getting kicked in the face by Mother Nature are ways for someone to be at the bottom of those stairs to pick you up and dust you off. Maybe someday there really will be that moment where you lay eyes on someone and think "oh, so here you are". For some of us, that may be a sweetheart, and for others it might be a child, and for others it might even be the perfect pet - I'm not judging. The point is, maybe it's true. Maybe the only way to get to Heaven is to pass through Hell. And maybe we don't get it right the first time, or we miss a detail, so we have to do it all over again.
Maybe bad things happen so that we can recognize the good. I definitely admit that I take good things for granted, a phone call with my mother, a text from a friend, or a lunch date with a loved one... but suddenly, when those things are whipped away, I realize how much I miss them, and I promise myself that I will never take them for granted once I get them back. But I, just like you, dear reader, am imperfect, and I often go back on my word. And when I go back on my word, the next thing i know I just expect those phone calls and texts and luncheons, without realizing just what a treat they are. So maybe, just maybe, bad things happen to remind me what is really important, and what not to take for granted. Maybe I no longer have someone's hand to hold so that I can remind myself that if he reaches for my hand in the grocery store, I'll hold it willingly, even if it makes carrying a basket full of green peppers and tomatoes (oh who am I kidding? A basket full of ice cream and hard shell chocolate syrup) uncomfortable to carry. Because I can tell you right now that I would much rather have the indentation of a shopping basket tattooed on my arm than no hand to hold.
Maybe some things happen as a punishment, maybe as a lesson to learn, and maybe because we've asked for them. I often wonder if when i pray for things, if I'm not taking into account everything that could come along with it. It's like praying for rain but then hating the mud puddles that come along with it.
Have you ever noticed that when people pray to God for something, and it does not turn out quite how they expected or wanted, they blame God? I am in no way excused from this. I've been known to yell at God quite profusely from time to time. But maybe if we realized that when we pray for something, it goes into God's hands, and God sure does see a lot further and a lot more clear than I can... and maybe he's just aching to scoop us up onto his lap and say "now you listen here,baby girl, I knoy you said you wanted X and Y... and you're right, they can make you happy, but not as happy as Z that I can see but you can't yet. I promise you that if you just hold on a little longer, and trust me on this one, that you will be so " much happier in the long run. Will you trust me on that?" Some people could look up into His kind eyes and be like, "sure, no problem.". But me? I'm ashamed to say that i've now realized that I am the kind of person who would look at Him and say "I can't see what you can see, but I can see this thing right here, and I know it will make me happy now, so let me just have that." And then, because God is so nice, he will give me that little piece of happiness that I could see, and then because I didn't see the bigger picture, and didn't trust that it was there, I am not ready for whatever it was that God saw when it comes, and it feels like my whole world has fallen apart. I need to constantly remind myself that I can't see the whole big picture.
So what do we learn from this? I'm not sure, but at O dark 30 in the morning I feel like it is something big. Something that I'll need to re-read in the morning, and maybe the morning after that too.
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