Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

We all know of good people who fall on hard times.  Innocent children are born suffering from disease or into lives of violence or poverty--misfortunes they have done nothing to deserve.  People of faith often have to confront this paradox: how can an all-loving God bestow blessings on some of His children and curses on others?  Why are some people forced to bear heavier burdens than others?  If God isn't fair, then what does this say about God?

I struggled a lot with these questions during my darkest hours.  I wanted desperately to believe in God, but no matter how hard I prayed (or asked others to pray for me) or how much effort I put into being an even better person who did even more for others, my burdens weren't lifted.  In fact, things seemed to get worse when I broke my leg on a cold winter day and faced commuting to work on ice and snow on crutches, which made public transportation nearly impossible.  Every time I thought I couldn't possibly handle more, something else went wrong.  I felt affronted because didn't God know I was a good person?  It seemed to me that friends who didn't volunteer or donate to charity or do anything for others had much better luck than I did.  You are probably already seeing the problems with my perspective.

First, we can never compare ourselves to others.  God has a unique plan for each of us, and it is not dependent on how good we are or how (less) good others might be (and we can never truly know anyone but ourselves anyway). 

Seond, none of us understands how the world works.  Even atheists are taking a leap of faith in deciding that nothing exists aside from this life.  We are all, every day, no matter what we believe, taking a leap of faith because none of us knows for sure why God put us here or what comes next. 

Third, if we don't know for sure why God does what He does, then we can never know why bad things happen to good people.  But, if we believe that God is truly a being of love and enlightenment, then we can trust that He has our best interests at heart.  We can trust that even if we are good people going through bad things, there is a reason for our suffering, and we will be better for it.  If not in this lifetime, then in whatever comes next.

There is a story I love about a little girl who finds a butterfly trying to struggle out of a cocoon.  Thinking to spare the butterfly the pain of this process, the little girl tears the cocoon open and liberates the butterfly.  But, instead of flying away, off into the blue skies in the full bloom of what the butterfly was meant to become, the butterfly's wings are shriveled, and it cannot fly.  The process of breaking out of the cocoon--as painful as it might be--is necessary to push the moisture from the butterfly's wings to enable flight.  Without that pain, the butterfly will never soar into the sky.

We are all butterflies.  Whatever your struggles, you are breaking free from your cocoon to emerge into the fully beauty of all you might become.