Does Everything Really Happen For A Reason?

I am not sure that everything happens for a reason. I used to think that. That every little thing had a purpose. I don’t anymore.

I think some things can happen for a reason or that we can make good out of bad. I think it is lovely when people can do this from some pretty difficult situations.

When someone is going through a death, job loss, heartache or other type of bad situation, people do like to tell them, “It happened for a reason.” In some ways it is comforting to know that you are not going through a hard time just because and that there is a purpose.

I know for myself that when I try to make sense out of every little thing, I just get more frustrated and it becomes exhausting. If I ever went through a horrible loss, I wouldn’t want to hear, “It happened for a reason.” I am not sure what would comfort me, if anything, but I wouldn’t want to hear that.

I will be honest and say I don’t know how God works with us humans. I see evidence that he is behind some of the little things and I see evidence that he is not. It is hard to know which is correct and I am tired of trying to figure it out.

I want to live my life knowing that I do have someone to pray to, that I have family and friends to lean on and that I can make lemonade out of any lemons that come my way. I also don’t want to spend any more time trying to figure it all out. Trying to understand why a friend lost her husband at 42, why another friend could lose her baby and why a young family died because they drove under a bridge at the exact same time a concreate slap fell down crushing their car.

Sometimes life is random. Sometimes things suck just because. Sometime they do because someone messed up or did something they shouldn’t have. Sometimes we can find a different way to do things because of our mistakes.

I remember when we were looking for a house. I didn’t want to get too stressed over it. You do have to usually wait a month after you get an accepted offer. Anything can happen and you could lose the house. So when we were looking, I told myself that if one house didn’t work out, there was a better one out there.

We ended up putting an offer on a very pretty three bedroom home. It was in a nice neighborhood with a park and my kids could have walked to school. It didn’t work out. We had to start looking again. In the end we found another great house where my kids take the bus and we have to drive to the park. But I like this house a little more than I did the first one.

Is this a better house because the first one didn’t work out? I don’t know. I am not sure what life would have been like if we had gotten the other one. I would have different neighbors and we would have had different experiences with that school.

When the ABA therapists told me that my son probably went to the best public school for special needs in the city, I felt like we were in the right house. Could it be that God lead us to that house for that school? It is possible. Then again, I think about the people who prayed for the right home and didn’t end up with one. I am not sure how I feel about all that.

I wish I understood how it all worked. Why certain prayers get answered and why others don’t. Why two different people can pray for the exact same thing and have a different outcome. Somedays I yearn for answers, others I don’t think about it as much.

What do you think? Do you think everything has a purpose even if we can’t see it at the time or do you think life is more random than we think it is?