Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

*I’d like to preface this conversation by saying that ultimately this comes down to belief.  There is no real provable answer to this question, although some religious or spiritual traditions do have a clear belief regarding this question. And, as you’ll find, I personally have a very clear belief regarding this question.

I, like many of us, have heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason” hundreds of times throughout my life.  It is almost always in response to a negative situation or circumstance, and is said by either the sufferer, or to the sufferer as a way to make meaning from bad or hard things.  When it is said to someone who is suffering it is usually, at its best, meant to console them, help them see some silver lining, or at least hope for a silver lining someday. At its worst it is actually incredibly and deeply damaging.

I have had the opportunity to work with people from all ages and walks of life throughout my career.  As a general rule, these are words that you will never hear come from my mouth.  As humans we are hard-wired to make meaning, to seek out meaning, to make sense of the world around us.  And when we are confronted with situations that appear to be meaningless and painful we search even harder- we desperately want to know WHY something has happened.  Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen now?  Why did this happen here?

This is not to be confused with the question of HOW it happened.  We can often see the failed systems, environmental factors, or missteps that lead to some events.  We can use our logic to untangle these issues sometimes (not all the time).

I get it, sometimes it is really comforting to believe that something or someone bigger than us is in control and even though it’s out of our hands, it must be in someone else’s hands who has a bigger purpose and perspective. 

I’ve been at this for a while and these waters get murky pretty quick.  I’ve worked with people impacted by trauma in a variety of contexts.  It’s one thing to hold this saying as a belief as we move through our average days.  It’s quite another to tell someone that “everything happens for a reason” when they have been suffering with chronic debilitating pain since age 13, or were trafficked by their father beginning at age 7, or just lost their loved one to senseless gun violence, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people we have lost to natural disasters and war.

No.  You won’t hear me say to these people that what they experienced was all part of God’s divine plan. 

Can you hear the incredible burden being placed squarely on the shoulders of the survivors?  ‘This happened because it’s part of God’s plan for you.  You faced this tragedy, this suffering, this loss, this atrocity because God planned your life this way.  This is the only way you could become whoever it is God destined you to be. ‘ It can lead people to feel like they are betraying their trauma or loved ones if they don’t go “make” something of it. It can also make you question what the plan was for your young daughter who died, and how horrible of a person you must be if it took the traumatic death of your child for you to reach your own life’s lesson or meaning.

 I don’t know where you land with this, but if that’s who God is, I want no part of it.

But here’s where my belief comes in:  we can make meaning and find redemption in all that we encounter.

I don’t believe in a God who makes awful things happen so we can learn a lesson or get stronger.  I believe in a God who shows up in our suffering- who hurts when we hurt.  I believe that love can still find a way in the darkest of days. I believe that when bad things happen that we can choose how to live in response to our circumstances.  There are plenty of examples of inspiring people who have seen terrible things and gone on to change the world.  I love a grand redemption story as much as the next person.  But please don’t forget that sometimes the bravest most loving thing someone can do after great tragedy and trauma is to dare to get up the next morning, to love their people, and to go about the quiet steady work of breaking cycles, seeking hope, and finding beauty around them.

No, I don’t believe everything happens for a reason.  And, I think we can make ourselves crazy trying to find the reasons in much of the suffering around us.  However, I think we can see suffering transform us and the world around us when it is met with love and compassion.