Why do bad things happen to good people?

I have found that is EXACTLY why bad things happen because they are good people!

I see time and time again sweet, kind friends being hammered with one thing after another. I think to myself why do they have to endure so many trials and problems. I remember Nathan’s junior year during soccer when he got hurt and a few others were out with ACL’s and other injuries. I started wondering, why is it all of these good kids that are getting hurt, why not some of these punks?!? As I was voicing my frustration to my sister Alesha, she told me “maybe that’s why they ARE good kids because of the trials they have had to go through”. That hit me hard because it rang true to my heart!

These last few days have been hard for me. On Saturday Stephen was hit from behind at a stop light. The other driver tried to create her “own” lane and pull up to a stop between the two lanes WITH two cars that were already there. She didn’t have any insurance. As I talked with Stephen I thought that everything would be fine since we have comprehensive insurance, yet he reminded me that we would still have to pay the $500 deductible. What? She doesn’t pay insurance AND gets to walk away without fixing our vehicles?!?!?

Then Tuesday morning Stephen walks out to the garage to clean off the back window of our new to us car, that we had just bought that weekend. Somehow the window shatters, not just a crack but SHATTERED! Once again that’s $250 to replace and so now within a few days we are up to $750 to just fix what we already owned! I immediately start thinking what are we doing wrong, but after studying this for a while now, I should immediately ALSO think what are we doing right in our lives to make Heavenly Father think that we are ready to grow more.

I thought of this quote when I was thinking about my original question, “Learning often becomes more acute and precise and has greater depth when brought about by adversity.” Good people want to learn and progress. They don’t want to remain stagnant. Adversity brings on that learning needed to really grow.

I have been reading and studying this book lately and loved this quote in it, “Heavenly Father would not deny enriching but stretching divine tutorials to ‘any’ who follow Him, especially those who have already done much to prove their love for Him and are thus ready for further lessons.” He gives trials to those that he LOVES!

I need to step back and realize that sometimes it takes a life lesson to help me grow. I also need to think that it’s not just what He is trying to teach me, but what he is trying to help me BECOME!

I love the quote by Neal A Maxwell, “Life lessons and trials, whether slow and stressful or sudden and harsh call for us to ponder, again and again, the implications of His divine perspective “the Son of Man hath descended below them all, Art thou greater than he?”

So as I’m studying and putting all of this together I start thinking of dear friends and family, I start analyzing different events from my life and how they have affected me and made me who I am. I couldn’t help but agreeing with my sister about that’s why they are good people, they have endured challenges and are stronger for it. “We have to develop our spiritual muscles, build up our spiritual wind, strengthen our spiritual endurance if we are going to win this race and claim the prize. You don’t run marathons by taking a taxicab across the route several times. You don’t gain patience by getting instant gratification or relief every time you call on the Lord.”

Then comes in the well known analogy by CS Lewis of the house ….

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.

Yes, he can build a mansion out of me. I don’t want to be some little shack that shakes in the wind and cold. It will be a pain as I’m thrown challenges during my remodeling, but each stage I will grow stronger. Therefore, I need to take each challenge as an offer for growth and see it that way.

“If you focus on the hurt, you will continue to suffer. If you focus on the lesson, you will continue to grow.”

AND then to remember in the back of my head… Psalm 34:19 “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” There is an end, there is a deliverance.

Of course with all of this thought and study, I had to delve into Job. Here is a man that even the scriptures said was “perfect”, in Job 1:1 it states that there was a man named Job who was “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil”. Job literally had it ALL going on with family, work, life! Then of course as we all know he lost his animals, servants, children, health.. he suffered enourmously “yet I trust in Him” (Job 13:15) was Job’s response. I can’t even imagine all that Job gained in the eternal scheme but in the end the Lord even gave him “twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10)

Everything will work out, it ALWAYS does. I just need to remind myself that there are things to be learned and growth to be made that couldn’t occur otherwise. I just had to get my thoughts out because I’m sure just like I go back to this blog for recipes and photos, I will need to go back for some comfort when my future challenges are at the door.