Everything (does not) Happen for a Reason

We often console ourselves and others with this old saying, "Everything happens for a reason."  I beg to differ with this old adage.  Here is another one, "God only gives you what you can handle.". Nonsense. This likens God to a child seeing how much pressure a pencil can bear before it breaks.  

Three weeks ago, I was back at MSKCC (a.k.a. Oz), for a day of scans, x-rays, etc. .  We got the very happy news that I am "All Clear!". I continue my NERD (No Evidence of Recurring Disease) status!  To have spent the day at the Pediatric Day Hospital again, and to have spent the last year with children who have cancer,  I know for sure that everything does NOT happen for a reason.  There is no good reason that a 12 year old girl should know how to pronounce Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Neuroblastoma, Rhabodosarcoma, or Osteosarcoma.  Further, they should not have to  know  what it is and how to treat it.  They were not given this disease by God because they could 'handle it' nor did they -as one email I was forwarded recently suggested- bring on the dis-ease (of mind or body) themselves because they were holding onto an old grudge, or did not think happy enough thoughts.  Ridiculous.  

Insert whatever situation you want into this absurd-when-you-think-about-it-phrase.  Why did the brave young soldier lose his limb, his friend, his sense of peace in his own head (PTSD)?  Why did my friend lose her Mother to cancer?  Why have so many parents I know lose their children to cancer?  What about a whole village to a tsunami?  Did God cause a miscarriage because he wanted to punish someone, or thought they wouldn't be good enough parents? I have seen enough crappy parents with lots of children to know for sure this is not the case.  More obnoxious a proposal yet is that God actively chose to give me or anyone else cancer so we could learn from it.

This is not to say that in every situation great and small there is not something to be learned.  There is always something to learn.  There is always a way we can do better, be better, and even appreciate the good more.  I submit that we do not need a tragedy or a life-changing diagnosis to learn to be a better, more deserving  or empathetic person.  Sometimes suffering helps you to realize what a gift life is, and it certainly gives you perspective.  But I believe our God is a loving and merciful God, not one who hands out diseases and tragedies to those who lack happy enough thoughts or who are not of pure enough heart.  If this were the case, there would be no such thing as a Pediatric Cancer Center.  

I do believe that there are people and experiences that are put in your path that you can find purpose in.  For example, a family I know of lost their  9 year old to Osteosarcoma a few months ago.  There is no good reason this happened to this family, God is not a selfish one who needed another angel.  In the few short months since their daughter's death, they have found a reason to carry on.  Of course for each other as a family first and foremost, and also to honor their daughter and raise funds for research in childhood cancers so that no one else has to endure their unimaginable pain.  Their daughter did not die because every thing happens for a reason, but they found purpose (or reason) in this colossal loss to help other families and scientists. 

Bad things happen to good people, and to not so good ones too, all the time.  Our goal as humans might be to find a purpose in the pain. 

When someone says "Everything happens for a reason" I think they are really asking "why did this happen?" and  "How can I make this better?". When "it" happens to us, we might try actively finding a purposefulness in it, rather than placing responsibility for it happening on some cosmic, unknown future purpose.  

I never asked "Why me?". I always supposed "Why not me?" I was, and am truly, wholeheartedly grateful that it did happen to me, and not to one of my children.  I prayed the unofficial new parent's prayer with the birth of each of our daughters, "please spare this beautiful child from harm, give it to me instead.". I know for sure that any parent who has a sick child would trade places without a moment's thought if they could.  

To find peace or purpose in suffering is a journey.  To know that "it" happened for no good reason is an important place to start on that journey.