Thursday, March 1, 2012
Tragedy
Sometimes things happen in our lives that we cannot explain and have difficulty even surviving. Such is the nature of tragedy. Tragedy can occur in our lives with no apparent rhyme or reason. Or tragedy can happen by our own fingertips. Either way, no matter how much we may try to do so, we can never go back and change a single moment of our lives. Someone famous has said, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." Rich thought. How many of us have our sights set on a tragedy contained within our past? How many of us have grown so comfortable with the event that we carry it with us wherever we go? How many of us have begun even to use it as a guide? Forrest Gump recalled, "Mama always said, "You have to put your past behind you before you can move forward." I think, once you have learned from the tragedy, Mama was right! Is the tragedy in YOUR life a tool or a guide? You ponder that.
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I was never one to pray, but even as I grew up and during times when I did things that I shouldn't have, I never lost my faith. More and more I struggle with it now, in the face of not my own tragedies, but of others. I read stories, such as the death of Jessica Lunsford, and I ask myself what kind of God, who loves us so, would allow such a hideous and terrible act to occur. These are my struggles as I try to find my way out of the dark and back into the light. I hope I can make It.
ReplyDeleteI SO understand your felings in this. The problem I see with expecting God to "show up" and save us at the last possible second is two fold. Number one, holding out that hope denies God's gift of free will. Sometimes people use their free will in the most horrific ways, yet it wouldn't be free will at all if God only permitted the saintly good choices to be made. Number two, expecting God to prevent all tragedy from occurring sounds like heaven, not earth. And God seems to desire that we grow as persons and learn to make more right choices than bad Thankfully, He is there to take care of those who suffer at the hands of others as well. Anyway, that's MY take on it. Who else wants to wade in the discussion?
ReplyDeleteTragedy is miserable and awful and it hurts like the dickens. Sometimes it seems we will never move past those dreadful and painful moments that sear our lives with a branding iron that can define the remainder of our days. Yet continue we must. My take is there is a paralysis that sets in for a time, and slowly, the will to live beyond mere existence emerges again. The paralysis lets up a bit, and then we get to decide the path ... Go back into paralysis or move forward now that choice of movement is again possible. Much like the tin woodman in the Wizard of Oz, those first movements forward are rusty and creaky and need more "oil" - but it can be done. Question is: if one chooses forward movement, who hold their oil can, and who measures out that oil?
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