Everything Happens for a Reason

Or how I learned again to play without being afraid

VatiGod, I’m feeling so elated.

I’m finally beginning to re-discover some profound truths that you revealed to me a long time ago, when I was still a New Ager.

Only that, back then, those truths were braided together with the lies of the enemy, leading me astray where they should have opened up mysteries and drawn me deeper into the interior castle at whose center you’re waiting for the soul to meet you.

For example, here’s one of the great truths you showed me: Everything happens for a reason. There are no coincidences or accidents in your world, VatiGod. You reveal yourself and interact with us through your creation—aka nature and other people—and through the everyday events in our lives.

In one of this week’s podcasts (which are daily chapter readings of the inspirational Carmelite book, Divine Intimacy), the text says…

There are two chief obstacles which hinder us from keeping in contact with God while we are at our daily tasks. First, there is the almost wholly worldly, material point of view with which we usually consider persons and events; second, there is the opacity of creatures, and the painful, disconcerting, and sometimes evil aspect of many occurrences.

As long as we are at Our Lord’s feet in prayer, it is easy for us to believe that we can see Him in every creature, in every situation; but when we are face to face with certain persons or difficulties, this idea vanishes and we founder in human reasonings which make us lose sight of God and His activities in the world.

The remedy for this is to cultivate a deep spirit of faith.

Faith is not limited to knowing God in Himself as the Trinity; it makes us see Him also in all creatures, in all circumstances of our life, since He is always present everywhere by His providential action. God knows creatures as they exist in relation to Himself; and faith, showing creatures to us as dependent upon God, makes us, in this way, see and judge them somewhat as God Himself sees and judges them.

Faith teaches us that nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in the world which is not subject to divine control. It is true that God cannot will evil; and therefore He does not will sin or its consequences, such as injustice, litigation, war; but He does permit them, simply to safeguard the liberty of His creatures. However, He sometimes intervenes in situations, even in those caused by sin, so as to make everything enter into His divine plan, which is ordained for His own glory and for the salvation and sanctification of souls.

My spirit of faith must be so real that it will convince me that no circumstance, either in my private life or in my relations with others, escapes God’s jurisdiction, which is so wise that it can draw good even out of evil.

Consequently, I can see nothing apart from God; I can find Him in any person, in any situation.

(Listen to the whole 8-minute chapter here: Divine Intimacy #163, “The Spirit of Faith”)

Back when I lived in Sedona, I used to know all of this, Vati.

Walking in that knowledge made my heart burst with gratitude and joy. My innate German tendency to pessimism and misery vanished. I felt freer and happier than ever before in my life, even though I’d gone from a six-figure salary in Germany to barely making ends meet.

I lived entirely in the moment and on faith alone, navigating life by following the small inner voice of the Holy Spirit (I called it “going with the flow”). Looking for “signs and synchronicities” that communicated your love and your divine will became a game for me… and I could tell you enjoyed playing too. You and I, we had this loving, sweet, fun-filled, whimsical relationship that only really close friends enjoy.

Once you showed me how much you loved me by sending me to my favorite brewery in the middle of a hot, windless Arizona day. I obeyed your nudges and went, although I knew the pub would be closed. When I arrived in the parking lot, you created a little breeze and made a grocery bag dance in the wind for me—for more than five minutes—reenacting my favorite scene from the movie American Beauty.

I took even negative events and hardships in stride, praising you for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow through those challenges.

I only yelled at you once, when I ran out of money and didn’t know how to pay the next month’s rent. I stomped out onto the trail behind the apartment house I lived in and angrily shouted at the sky, “YOU brought me here—now SUSTAIN me!!!”

And as always, you took care of me.

One week later, I received a letter from an insurance company that said my mother had set up a cheap life insurance policy for me more than a decade ago, but since she was now in a nursing home, she wouldn't be able to pay the premiums anymore. Did I want to keep paying… or cancel the insurance and get a small lump sum of close to $4,000?

This time in Sedona was truly my “lilies in the field” moment where I survived on childlike faith, hope, and awe.

I also loved and accepted all people as brothers and sisters, even the broken and difficult ones. A few times, I even apologized to people who had wronged me, which baffled and disarmed them so much that they turned from enemies to friends.

So what happened to make me lose it all?

Life happened. A changing environment and geography, a marriage that made me shift my priorities, a child that demanded attention and care, a 9-to-5 job that took up all of my energy and focus.

But I know, VatiGod, none of these things were what ultimately derailed my loving, BFF relationship with you.

What did derail it was this: Unfortunately, back then, my faith wasn’t a house built on rock but on sand. It was missing the firm foundation, the rock I could stand on and cling to when times got tough. My “free spirit” mindset didn’t provide me with a framework that would remain solid when all other variables changed.

Now I realize the framework that was missing was two-pronged: the Cross and the Magisterium.

As a New Ager, I was on a perpetual playdate with you, VatiGod, but as you say in The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, those people who focus solely on you do it because your wonders and graces delight them, but they don’t want to focus on the Christ Crucified—because he’s bloody and raw and scary and demanding.

VatiGod says, “I love you.”

Jesus says, “I love you. Now pick up your cross and follow me.”

In The Dialogue, God says Jesus is the bridge to Heaven, and his blood is the key that opened Heaven for us. Nobody can get into Heaven without the Christ Crucified.

That part of the book hit me hard because I, too, had been avoiding the Christ Crucified. The “Sacred Heart” Jesus as my friend and big brother who’d love me and protect me, sure. But spare me the gore.

I didn’t realize that without the “gore,” without embracing Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice in atonement for our sins, I was going nowhere. Because I needed to stand at the foot of the Cross, taking it all in, in order to be able to bear my own cross.

The other part that was missing was the Church’s Magisterium, the combo of Scripture and Tradition, to guide me. Many non-Catholics think that its strict morality and rules are stifling, but the exact opposite is true.

Years later, being a member of a local Toastmasters Club taught me the value of structure and rules. Every meeting followed a rigid order: First the President welcomed the members, then he/she introduced the Toastmaster, then the Toastmaster introduced the Word Master who’d present the Word of the Day, then came Speaker #1, and so forth.

I realized that far from being a hindrance, this framework gave the club members the freedom to play and be creative within its boundaries. We didn’t have to discuss every meeting what the order of the day would be. It saved a ton of time and energy that could be better spent on creating interesting content.

Fr. Mike Schmitz once compared the setting of firm moral rules in a society to a group of children playing on a platform at the top of a cliff. Fencing in the platform allowed them to play freely. Taking away the fence, on the other hand, caused such insecurity and anxiety that the children would end up cowering in fear at the very center of the platform, too afraid to move, lest they might fall off the edge.

That’s why I feel so blessed that, after a lifelong search, I found my forever home in the Catholic Church. Finally, I have the freedom to play again. Praise be to God!