There Is A Reason

I hear the question a lot, "Why is this happening to me?" Rarely is it asked after something good has occurred. Usually it has been preceded by something bad, perhaps even catastrophic. Sometimes it can be the questioning of an individual, at other times of a group, such as a couple or family. Such concerns can even be offered by communities or countries, e.g., why did the disaster have to happen?" The answers we give to such questions are too comprehensive to even begin to address in a blog post.

Nevertheless, for the sake of sharing honest thoughts here, I believe that everything that happens to us prepares us to better handle what is still going to happen. I have never felt comfortable saying, however, that we should be happy about everything that happens to us. In fact, I often wish the negative had never occurred, but I can still see something to be learned in everything that happens.

Some of the most incredible people I have ever met in my life, those people who seem to have it all together and have an eerie sense of calm about them, have experienced some of the saddest events in their lives that I have ever heard. What gives them such strength and stability? Many times these people are people of faith and attribute it to that. Often they give thanks to other people who were there "for them" and express the wonder that they don't know how they could have ever made it without those other people. Nearly all of them say that whatever it was that got them through the storm, the result was that they became stronger for what still loomed ahead.

Embedded in everything that happens to us is something to be learned, indeed embraced, which will help lay the foundation for a stronger person to grow. It takes time, sometimes excruciating time, but it will take place. We will be a stronger people if we are mindful of the struggles our sisters and brothers (and we) undergo everyday. Patience and compassion extended to one another will help illuminate the deep questions that seem to have no answers. With genuine love for one another the answers will evolve and help all of us to better understand that there is a reason, a reason why we need to always be there for each other.