Do things happen for a reason?

I was tormented and abused as a child and I think in some weird way...it did teach me something.

I don't take my kids for granted. Not one single day. I make sure they KNOW I love them. As I never felt that as a child. They aren't afraid to come to me with their problems and they trust me. And that is the most awesome feeling in the world.

I agree with Judy when she said "We can choose to be bitter and angry and see only the darkness or sadness of a situation....OR we can CHOOSE to find the lessons we can apply to improve our lives".

I try to think of everything as a life lesson.

:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JLC

Coming at it from this angle, I would say this....Everything in life is going to be what you make of it. Yes, bad things happen that we have no control over. BUT...we DO have control over how we respond to and react to those bad things. We can choose to be bitter and angry and see only the darkness or sadness of a situation....OR we can CHOOSE to find the lessons we can apply to improve our lives.
Easy??? Certainly not. But it's a choice and a power we all possess.

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Well said!! I'm not sure what I believe (religiously/spiritually), but I have always believed things happen for a reason…when one door closes another opens.

I believe that religion was created by man in an attempt to keep some sort of order. Opium for the masses if you will. Imagine if people believed there would be no recourse for their actions. If everyone thought there was no god, or hell, we would live in a pretty horrible place.

That said, I am agnostic. But that dosen't mean that I am not spiritual. I believe there is only one "LIFE". Not that we each get only one life, but rather... There is only one life and we are all just pieces of it, vibrating at different frequencies. And when I say "we" I mean every living thing. The only difference between me and my Ball Python is that we are vibrating at different frequencies. So I say yes. Everything must happen for a reason because it is all connected.

Yea i too agree that you can either choose to stay in a crummy state of mind or move on...it's the difference between pain and suffering, everyone experiences pain i.e. when a loved one passes...but we choose to suffer, like JLC said before, we can choose to think about the good times or we can pity ourselves.

I read a couple good quotes a while ago that kind of relate to the subject...

"Take death for example.
A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it.
We make extraordinary efforts to delay it and often consider
its intrusion a tragic event.
Yet we'd find it hard to live without it.
Death gives meaning to our lives. It
gives importance and value to time.
Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it."

"We tell ourselves all kinds of lies to justify our stupidity"