I have a confession to make.
I do not subscribe to the “everything happens for a reason” mantra. I think it is trite at best and spiritually and emotionally harmful at worst. People who say it mean well, I know. But when I am going through a hard time it really is not helpful to think that God would cause me or my loved ones trauma or harm to create a certain outcome.
For those thinking I should have my Christian Card revoked, that’s fine. If it improves your spiritual wellbeing to believe in this way, there is nothing wrong with that. To each their own.
Now, this doesn’t mean that good cannot come from our suffering…far from it. But I think it all comes down to how we learn to understand and respond to the events in our lives, not that everything is being dictated via some master plan. And this is where our understanding of God and our journey toward spiritual maturity comes in.
A friend shared a message with me recently from an Episcopal school in Louisiana that is adopting the motto “Love All of It” for their school year. According to this message, loving all of it means that when we approach all situations and people in our lives with love rather than fear, our mindset and our actions are transformed for the better.
Examples of this include:
Love the struggle because it makes you appreciate your accomplishments.
Love challenges because they make you stronger.
Love competition because it makes you better.
Love negative people because they make you more positive.
Love those who have hurt you because they teach you forgiveness.
Love fear because it makes you courageous.
The school principal writes, “Living from a foundation of love rather than fear builds connectedness, bridges differences, and leads people to see the goodness in everyone as our Episcopal mission calls us to do. This type of disposition is sorely needed in a world where pandering to, and stoking fears all too often seems to be the norm.”
Knowing the right things to do and say is a struggle most days. The only thing that consistently makes sense to me is Jesus’s message to love your neighbor as yourself (by the way, this implies that you have to love yourself, which is an article for another day).
What does it mean to love all of it in your daily life? How would it change your interactions with people and your reactions to situations that may not go the way you hoped?