Another cute lie on a card

Oh, boy. This one shows up all over facebook in various forms, all on cute little quote cards: "Believe that everything happens for a reason." or "Everything happens for a reason."

I don't know who wrote that, or who is trying to promote it, but it's a big, fat, emotionally dangerous LIE.

Try telling that to a little girl whose dad molested her for years.

Try telling that to Elizabeth Smart, who was held captive as a sex slave to a mad man for 9 months when she was barely a teenager.

Try telling that to the mom whose daughter was kidnapped, raped, and murdered last month in Utah.

Try telling that to the mom who was 2 days shy of her baby's due date when her car was hit by a drunk driver on a suspended license--and it killed her baby.

Then look me in the eye and tell me why you think that lie is going to help ANYONE.  The reason those things happened is another person made a very bad choice, and someone else suffered for it. That's the reason.

Sometimes things happen because there are truly wicked people in this world. Sometimes really good, innocent people suffer a lot for their whole lives because one selfish, wicked person did something bad to them. And sometimes someone else made a mistake that had really sad ripples. Sometimes good people do dumb things that end up hurting other people.

And it makes me sick to think that all those facebook posters are trying to tell them that happened for a reason (presumably that some higher power condones). The quote seems to imply that God is controlling all these things that happen, and He WANTED it to happen.

Sometimes, there are bad things that happen because someone else made a choice, and sometimes it's dumb luck, and sometimes there seems to be no reason, and wasting energy searching for the reason is a waste of time and emotion.

I wish people would stop saying that everything happens for a reason. It's not helpful.

Really, bad things happen. And it's a good thing Jesus came and can help us get through them without it destroying our whole lives.