Anyone who has experienced a trauma, suffered injury, or been a victim of attack has asked the question; “Why me?”
As we struggle in the aftermath to make sense of what has happened, we find ourselves questioning everything. Why did this happen to me? Why now? And the big one: Why did God allow this to happen?
Now this gets into some heavy-duty spiritual semantics. If you’ve read my blog before, you know I use the word God to mean what I perceive as the energy of Love in the universe. You can call it the Divine, Yahweh, Buddha, whatever works for you.
A Course in Miracles states that which is not of Love is not of God. This makes sense to me. It lets God off the hook in “allowing” horrible things to happen. At some point, we have to accept the fact that sometimes horrible things simply happen. And we need to fill our hearts with the knowledge that God was right there with you.
And perhaps God is just as shocked and dismayed as we are.
It boils down to this question. Can we accept that there is randomness in the universe?
In his wonderful book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner comments on this randomness and chaos we are subjected to.
“…In that case, we will simply have to learn to live with it, sustained and comforted by the knowledge that the earthquake and the accident, like the murder and robbery, are not the will of God, but represent that aspect of reality which stands independent of His will, and which angers and saddens God even as it angers and saddens us.”
So there is randomness that occurs outside the will of God? That is one of the most comforting thoughts I’ve come across.
I became a student of A Course in Miracles soon after I was raped. I struggled with these questions daily. As I quoted from this book in my last blog, “There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent. There is nothing to be feared.” I knew somehow there was truth to this, but I was constantly afraid. And I felt I knew places where God was not.
But I also knew I had called on God immediately to be with me, to sustain me, and if I was not to survive this, to comfort those left behind. And I felt the Love of God in that moment, and in the months and years to follow.
So what is God’s will? I used to think everything was pre-ordained and the things that happen to us are all God’s will. Not any more.
I do think we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I’ve come to think of God’s will as a poker game. In life we are dealt certain hands. Sometimes it’s God’s will, sometimes it isn’t. How we play our hand is what counts.
Do we fold (pack it in, give up)?
Do we stand (stuck in the bitterness of what happened)?
OR
Do we draw (on the compassion of God and those around us) and see what the next hand will hold?
Your healing path may involve folding or standing at times. But if you don’t eventually draw, you can’t open to the possibilities of joy in the future.
Why me?
Why not me?
Why anyone?
We don’t know, but let’s hold hands, keep our face turned toward the Divine, and get through it together.
“Love, which created me, is what I am.”
-A Course in Miracles
Victoria McGee
August 8, 2015
Victoria MCGee, M.A. 