Faith

What makes you wake up in the morning and face the day? No one has a perfect life. Everyone has had a day when they have cried themselves to sleep, prayed so hard they forgot what they were praying for, or asked "what if?" over and over until every possible scenario of their life has played through their minds. But at the end of all that over-analyzing there is one statement that leads to some sort of comfort. "Everything happens for a reason." Right?....

The hard part to grasp about this idea is that we have no proof that this is true. It is an idea soley based on 100% faith and nothing else. Faith isn't something you can learn through other people's experiences or study and get tested on. Today we live in a world where there are text books on how to do or think just about anything. But faith is something we have to learn and teach ourselves.

What is faith??
* A strong belief in a super natural power or powers that control the human destiny
*Complete confidence in a person or plan
*Loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person

I have no scientific evidence that fate exists. That people go through different issues, whether happy or sad, to develop themselves into the person they are supposed to become. It's the childlike hope and faith that everything happens for a reason that gets you back up and trying to figure out why something happened because deep down you are confident there is a reason. God will never challenge you with something you can't overcome. And even if our lives are truly just a case of cause and affect, we still HAVE to believe deep down somewhere that there is a reason for the events of our lives or how do we get past the bad things that happen to us?

When I look back on my life there are lots of instances when the thought "everything happens for a reason" was the only sound thought in my head. One specific time was the first time I had my heart broken. I thought I had my life planned out. I was a junior in college and was in love with my high school sweetheart. A few weeks short of 5 years together the phone rings and all I got was "I cant' do this anymore". My heart sank, I couldn't breath, and my eyes filled with tears. I hadn't lived my life without him. I didn't know how to function. Someone I talked to everyday, confided my deepest secrets to, my best friend was gone. It was like he died. From that phone call on I never talked to him, I never saw him and it was literally as if a piece of my heart disappeared. Or what about the time I broke my knee getting out of bed, yes getting out of bed, my senior year in college. No accident or sports involved. I was stepping out of bed like i do every single day of my life.... All I got was my knees are prone for displacement. But WHY? There has to be a reason, a plan, a method to all this madness.

This rule doesn't just apply for issues in the love department or bad things. But unfortuaately the bad things - sickness, cancer,car wrecks, getting picked on- these instances tend to overshadow all the amazing things that happen in your life. You get an amazing job offer, you randomly meet someone that turns into new best friend, having a baby, getting married, winning the lottery... There are tons more happy things that happen in life than bad... we just have to open our eyes to all the amazing things that are in the works around us.

I look back now and see how much I have grown from all those opportunities, mistakes, accidents, and experiences. My life is 100% different right now than it would have been if my life had continued with my high school boyfriend. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world of handicapped hardships and personal empathy to those that stuggle with phsycial issues due to my knee and my life has been formed by all the many amazing family, friends, and coworkers I have had. Living through happy times or affliction and dealing with all the emotions involved with every life experience has taught me to find out who I truly am as a person, made me aspire to follow my dreams, taught me to be independent and has ultimiately made me the woman I am today.

No one can say it better than Marilyn Monroe's quote:

"I believe things happen for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually start to trust no one but yourself, & sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." ~ Marilyn Monroe