I was reading through some inspirational ideas when I came across the words of Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, from the book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”
“In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened?”
Are you capable of forgiving and accepting in love a world which has disappointed you by not being perfect, a world in which there is so much unfairness, cruelty, disease, crime, earthquakes and accidents?
Can you forgive its imperfections and love it because it’s the only world we have?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they hurt you and let you down by not being perfect?
Can you forgive them and love them, because there aren’t any perfect people around, and because the penalty for not being able to love imperfect people is condemning oneself to loneliness?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck, sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you?
Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite his limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong or as perfect as you needed them to be?
And if you can do these things, will you be able to recognize that the ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons God has given us that enable us to live fully, bravely and meaningfully in this less than perfect world?
May this be God’s will.—AMEN.
