God, and his cruel sense of humor.
I am not sure how to start this out. It's all going to sound like babble no matter what sort of introduction I give it, and I'm nearly positive, that as is the case with everything I seriously ponder, I will have no conclusive out-troduction either.
I just listened to my best friend "let it all out" about something. A friend of ours died in a car ( Read more... )
Instead I think God has "sent us to college" so to speak. We're here to learn what it means to be mortal, to experience the good and the bad, to have faith (or lack there of), to be in control of our thoughts and feelings, and, yes, to experience the sorrow of death. To prove, if you will, that we are not just a pack of highly evolved monkeys. So, as you said, life really is just a lottery. Personally I like to think of it as a "roll of the dice." In other words, "shit happens, deal with it."
That's not to say that God is mean and unfeeling, but rather, like any good parent, He realizes that there reaches a point when He cannot protect us from every little problem that comes our way. He has given us incredible intelligence to help us cope with those problems. And, early on in our history, He gave us instructions to help. He told us things like, be good to each other, be honest, be hard working, pray often, etc.
I also don't believe that it "only happens to the good people." I think that it happens just as often, if not more so, to the bad people except that nobody cares about them so no one hears about it as often. For example, I don't think too many people would shed a tear if Charles Manson slipped on bar of soap one day and caved his skull in. But when it happens to a good person then it affects everyone who loves and cares for that person.
What's happened to you and your friends is very tragic and I wouldn't dare to make it out to be less so. But think, instead, from a different point of view: however brief, the world was still blessed with the gift of your friend's life. How many people would not be who they are today without him. And your other friend is now very sad and grieving, but this is just short a moment in life and it's an important process to learn how to deal with. And how truely blessed she is to have someone like you to talk to about it.
Where I'm going with this is that life is not always pretty or easy or fair, but it's how you relate to the bad, along with the good, that can ultimately determine whether or not, in the end, it was worth it. You can sit back and feel sorry for yourself and become one of the "wastes of space" that we see every day, or we can become one of those people that, when our time comes, will be missed enough to be remembered by everyone.
Also, I think everyone should own a copy of "It's A Wonderful Life" and watch it a few times a year to help remind them of this.
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Galen Rhodes
http://www.thissmallworld.com/users/grhodes
grhodes@thissmallworld.com
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