Does Everything Happen for a Reason? By Sarah Grandfield-Connors
E
verything happens for a reason, people often claim. When I lost my daughter, this became a most hated response to my grief. What reason was there for the pain I was feeling? What rationale could be applied to my grief as I viewed her body in its tiny casket?
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 20
Everything happens for a reason isn’t a balm to the mourning heart. It’s a harsh truth that no one wants to acknowledge. It goes to the core of what each of us believes about theology, Lutheran or not. All humans wonder about the afterlife, and we’d like to think that whatever answer we come up with is based on our intellectual reasoning. In that sense, we all can conceptualize that everything does indeed happen for a reason, no matter what our belief system. It’s the deep philosophy behind this fact that causes us to avoid dwelling on it. As my grief unfolded and deeply took root during my second year of mourning, I found myself unable to rationalize much of anything. I began to avoid God. I was angry. I stopped attending church on a regular basis. We Lutherans are very big on music, and since music is so soul stirring, it was
difficult for me to read the words in my hymnal and hear the voices around me sing out about God’s truth. I didn’t want to hear the truth; I wanted my baby back. I finally did begin attending church regularly again after I had moved and found a new LCMS church close by. This church was very different than the one I had previously attended, which had been a modern church with a praise band and had featured sermons which were preached in a very motivational speaking style. This new pastor’s preaching style was “oldfashioned” and wordy. Each sermon was rich with information I could bring home and mull over. There was an organ and a choir that sang only traditional hymns. The service was reverent, and when the institution of the Sacrament began, the sanctuary
