Why?

Have you ever noticed that life goes on a cycle? We have times where life seems routine and easy, and then where everything seems challenging. In life right now, I would say Nate and I are in the easy zone. Though I am sure we will be back to the challenging side of things when we have two babies. (I linked the announcement... we had a taste of a viral video and made it on GMA and the Today show!)

A few years ago when Nate and I were first married, it seemed like something was always going wrong. Doctors visits, hospital stays, deaths in the family, struggles with work... we seemed to be catching tastes of it all. And then at some point, things leveled off and we were no longer constantly treading water, trying not to drown. We were on top, floating on by through life. The life cycle. Your life gets flooded, you resist drowning in it, and eventually you stop treading water and learn to float.

That is the purpose of life. To get knocked down and to get up again. To learn. To progress. To ultimately return back to live with God, wiser then when we left His presence and hopefully more like Him.

But sometimes life just seems unfair. Because life IS unfair. Its part of living in a fallen world, things just don't work out for us sometimes. If you are like me though, you want justice. Nothing bad happens to good people and people who do bad things fail. But rain falls on the just and the unjust. Hardworking people lose their jobs, healthy people you love get cancer, and lots of other seemingly awful things occur every day. And you try to make sense out of it all. Why? Why does this have to happen to me? Or him? Or her? But there is no point trying to figure it out, because most of the time we don't get an answer. It's just life.

As I have had people close to me struggle with challenges much bigger than my own, especially things that are SO unfair, I often wonder why God couldn't have provided a miracle? Where was the lamb in the thicket or the angels to shut the mouths of the lions? Why would He let something like this happen? When things are hard, I admit there are times where I've wondered, where is my miracle?

And at church on Sunday as I pondered why hard things have to happen, it was reconfirmed to me once again that when there is no lamb in the thicket, or if God doesn't send angels to shut the mouths of the lions, He already provided the miracle. "In the gift of His Son hath God prepared a more excellent way (Ether 12:11)". 

Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, all things are made right. All the inequities and injustices of life will be reckoned for. And instead of dwelling on the "why?", I felt God's love fill my heart with hope. For the new day. For second chances. For the time when all will be made right by Him. And though the "whys?" still pop into my head, His peace has comforted my heart and I know that He is in control. Though I don't understand, I have faith in His plan, and that is what carries me forward.