It has always caused me to wonder – the lack of fairness about the joy and the crap that happens to people. That happens to me. I do not believe “what goes around, comes around” any more than I believe that “everything happens for a reason”. What I do believe is that we have this one life to live and that following Jesus gives this life meaning. My natural tendency is to try to “make sense” of things that happen around me and to use those things as indicators of what I can expect. The problem lies in the indicators.
- Why did my friend who was a strong swimmer die young when he drowned in a canal?
- How did he escape the Cypress collapse and others didn’t?
- Why did she hate me because I had blonde hair, white skin and wore a skirt to school?
- How come I had so many miscarriages?
- Why should I have three and others none?
- Why did he get sick right after he retired and then die before he was ready? Before I was ready?
- Where did he come from and why did I say yes?
Jesus turns all of this upside down and says none of those happenings indicate anything about God. Everything happens because it does and my task is to live faithfully, rooted in God’s grace through the good and the bad. If I want to grow in faith then I need look at the compassion that was expressed in every case – the friends that gathered in grief, the teachers who taught tolerance, the radiologists who wept with me, the opportunities to say I love you and to experience healing touch. These are the actual indicators of how God operates.
~Linda
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