Searching For The Reason

“Everything happens for a reason.”

It’s a common expression. The ability to explain life, especially bad stuff, gives us comfort and makes us feel safer.

Beyond that purpose, it’s crap.

Our minds keep searching for “the reason”. This often leads us to conclude, “It happened because: I deserved it. I’m not good enough. I don’t matter.”

Because the expression often includes “God will use it for good,” this leads to the next conclusion: “God doesn’t want me to be happy. God is punishing me. God is disappointed in me.”

Besides feeling like crap about what happened, we now feel like crap about ourselves or about God if we twist it up spiritually!

Wait — there’s more. The old wound often resurfaces in the future with this additional conclusion: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move past this? Why can’t I get over this?”

There is nothing wrong with you. The solution you’ve applied to your pain is bringing you more pain.

Things happen that just suck. Whether it was a crazy accident, the result of one bad decision after another, or abusive behavior: it sucked.

Bad things happen. Good things happen. Creating a direct relationship between them is not helpful.

Experience both.