Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

by Kate Bowler

It was certainty, plain and simple, that God had a worthy plan for my life in which every setback would also be a step forward. I wanted God to make me good and make me faithful, with just a few shining accolades along the way. Anything would do if hardships were only detours on my long life’s journey. I believed God would make a way.

What would it mean for Christians to give up that little piece of the American Dream that says, “You are limitless”? Everything is not possible. The mighty Kingdom of God is not yet here. What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed? What if being people of “the gospel” meant that we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough.

used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should-haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible—separation. Brokenness. An end without an ending.

It is an easy lie that has wormed its way into my mind: I am the center that must hold. It is a thought I picked up so early on in my life that I can’t bring myself to question it. It is something closer to a reflex. Life is unstable because it is life. But I am steady.

Control is a drug, and we are all hooked, whether or not we believe in the prosperity gospel’s assurance that we can master the future with our words and attitudes.

Infertility and disability should have taught me how to surrender, taught me how little I can control the conditions of my own happiness. Instead, that helplessness has only thickened my resolve to salvage what I can from the wreckage. If the physiotherapist says “One lap,” I do two. When the doctor says, “You’ll be out in four days,” I push for three. I would like to blame it on some charming quirk—“I’m plucky!”—but it’s more than that. I don’t know how to stop. When I was little, my dad would read stories from Greek mythology, and I loved one most of all—that prideful king Sisyphus, who was doomed to roll a boulder up an impossibly steep hill only to have it roll down again. He would discover for all eternity that not every burden can be shouldered. Yes, I would think, learning nothing. But at least he kept trying.

If I never nap. If I never complain. If I stifle my sharp intake of breath when I feel the pain. If I hide the reality, then maybe I’m not sick. So I continue to work full days. I get up at 6:30 A.M. every day—no matter what—so I won’t miss a moment with my son. When I stop taking the medication that minimizes the numb feeling in my hands and feet, because I want to feel every shred of what is happening to me, my friends practically stage an intervention. When will I realize that surrender is not weakness?

St. Teresa of Avila once said: “We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can—namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.” For Christians not of the prosperity persuasion, surrender is a virtue; the writings of the saints are full of commands to “let go” and to submit yourself to what seems to be the will of the Almighty. All of American culture and pop psychology scream against that. Never give up on your dreams! Just keep knocking, that door is about to open! Think positively! Self-improvement guaranteed!! The entire motivational-speaking industry rests on the assumption that you can have what you want, you can be what you want. Just do it. When prosperity believers live out their daily struggles with smiles on their faces, sometimes I want to applaud. They confront the impossible and joyfully insist that God make a way. They obediently put miracle oil on their failing bodies. They give large offerings to the church and expect great things. They stubbornly get out of their hospital beds and declare themselves healed, and every now and then, it works. They are addicted to self-rule, and so am I.

“I have known Christ in so many good times,” she said, sincerely and directly. “And now I will know Him better in His sufferings.”

If I were to invent a sin to describe what that was—for how I lived—I would not say it was simply that I didn’t stop to smell the roses. It was the sin of arrogance, of becoming impervious to life itself. I failed to love what was present and decided to love what was possible instead. I must learn to live in ordinary time, but I don’t know how.

I have come to the end of what I know how to do. I know how to suffer. I know how to make the best of things. But I don’t know how to do the most basic thing—I don’t know how to stop.

“I’m not sure I want to know what happens if I stop chemotherapy, but at the same time I want to get it over with,” I confess. “What would you do?” “I’d go to work,” he says, and I realize the weight of what he is saying. His office is plain and sensible, which confirms something I already know about him five minutes into our conversation. He has suffered and is there to work. In what were the worst moments of his life, he put one foot in front of the other. He tasked himself with a series of responsibilities that ultimately gave me back this year. And maybe many more. But what I loved more than anything was that he did it without knowing it would matter. He marched forward because it was the best he could do. “We’re all terminal,” he says simply, and it answers my unspoken question. How do you stop? You just stop. You come to the end of yourself. And then you take a deep breath. And say a prayer. And get back to work.

“Don’t skip to the end,” he said, gently. “Don’t skip to the end.”

“I think you meant that we just can’t know. And that our brains fill in all the details, for good or for ill. We want to tell ourselves a story—any story—so we can get back to certainty,”

Plans are made. Plans come apart. New delights or tragedies pop up in their place. And nothing human or divine will map out this life, this life that has been more painful than I could have imagined. More beautiful than I could have imagined. “Right. That’s the secret—don’t skip to the end,”

How can anything good live in the space that death would make?