"When bad things happen to good people"

Hi Roy, I hope you will feel welcome here. I am very sorry for your loss and your struggles, know that any topic is safe with us — we don’t have all the answers, but we may have a different perspective.

I agree it can be confusing to try to understand how a good person can have a life with so many challenges, while someone else that is so closer to evil may have all the temporal blessings imaginable. Personally I find it hard to believe that temporal blessings come from spiritual quests. I say people that know the temporal can get the temporal, and people that know spiritual can reap spiritual fruits. It looks much clearer to me in that light. That of course is a gross generalization, and does not apply to subjects such as a father protecting his family, or understanding what cannot be known.

Again, welcome!

Welcome….I’m glad you feel it’s safe to share your thoughts on this. The literature on “centrality of beliefs” suggests that there are certain core beliefs that tend to drive our philosophy and behavior. When these central beliefs are shattered or changed, it tends to alter other behaviors and beliefs. As someone once said, “when structure crumbles, everything rumbles”.

It sounds like this was a central belief on you part — that righteousness leads to abilities to protect one’s family. It also sounds like you’ve learned this isn’t true, which is now hurting your overall belief in the Church.

My thoughts — I don’t think there was ever a promise that God would always grant us that protective power due to righteousness in all cases. Bad stuff always will happen to the righteous, just as it happens to the unrighteous. Even perfect faith that the Lord will do something to benefit us doesn’t always lead to that blessing we seek materializing. I think learning to live life without the expectation that you will always have the power to protect your family is a healthy liberation from that belief, which can really hurt us when it doesn’t materialize, as it has with you. Better to start our believing it’s not necessarily true, and teach that to our children so they aren’t similarly disappointed.

Also , recognize that peace can come from an over-arching belief that God is fair and that in the end each person will “acknowledge that his judgments are just”, as it says in the scriptures. This means that whatever happens to the child you lost, you’ll think it’s fair. Also, from recognizing that God said prosperity would come to those who kept his commandments — but that (in my view) he was talking about nations and not individual people.

Also, I’m not convinced it’s even doctrine about what happens to stillborn or miscarried children — it may well be opinion that has made its way into policy of the Church, but I doubt very much if you can find evidence of what truly happens to such children in the scriptures definitively (perhaps someone else can answer this).

Also, that part of life is learning to be at peace and happy when everything is crumbling around you.

It sounds also like you have an “internal locus of control”, which means that you think everything that happens to you is you own doing. I was that way at one time, but have adopted a more external “locus of control” which says that sometimes bad things just happen — and they would happen whether I was there or not.

I hope you can find some peace about this, and learn to have the same enthusiasm in pure service for others (tempered in those areas it needs tempering) for reasons other than the fact that you want the blessings you were seeking at the time.

Roy, with all the reverence in my heart, let me tell you I find your story deeply beautiful. There is more awaiting you. Of that I am sure. Look to the highest you can imagine. Mmm, climb every mountain, follow every rainbow til you find your dream.

Welcome, Roy.

I have also found that we, as LDS, are not so different in this regard as people of other faiths, each seeking answers that add meaning for them.

Well said, and a very mature and reasonable statement to make. That rings true to me also.

I have co-opted you to become part of the rebuilding process. 😈

Sign me up! It is great to be part of a group where we are all working on these things and can share them with eachother to help the building and rebuilding for all of us.

thanks for the update post!

A light bulb went off in me and I realized I was like those early Jews waiting for God to save me from all my problems. Suddenly I realized I had been living the gospel for the wrong reasons. All God wanted me to be concerned about was overcoming my sins.

I have nothing to say other than I think this is brilliant logic….

Good morning and thank you all for the support you have shared,

About the sealing ordinance not being performed for stillborn children-

I am still working on separating the “inspired opinion” from official doctrine as this is a new way of looking at things for me. From the perspective of the STAYLDS.com article on church doctrine, official doctrine is found in the standard works. The doctrine in the standard works is clear that little children have eternal life. There are many who have expressed inspired opinion as to who might qualify as a little child and what exactly is meant by the “eternal life” being promised. But sometimes we don’t get to know all the details. Perhaps the verse that speaks to me the best in regard to the state of our little ones is found in Isaiah 40:11- “He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.”

I have also found great peace in something that Pinkpatient said: “The real sealing power lies within our hearts.” This has helped me suppress the urge to write to church headquarters petitioning a policy change just for me.

I agree with you about the “internal locus of control.” I used to have a motivational poster framed in my office that said: “Destiny- It’s not a matter of chance but rather of choice.” That pretty much summed it up for me.

I was that way at one time, but have adopted a more external “locus of control” which says that sometimes bad things just happen — and they would happen whether I was there or not.

I realized that sometime bad things just happen. Does not matter whether you are good or bad things just happen. It was a hard pill to swallow but as I thought about it more it brought comfort. I no longer had to try and find meaning in every event in my life. From now on I only need to focus on the best course of action for each event and deal with the consequences the best I can. Taking the metaphysical out of most things in my life has actually been a great relief.

Shifting that locus of control for me has been a major challenge of the last year.

In reading the book “The Shack,” I came across a passage that I transplanted almost entirely into my own notes. I wrote-

“Agency is not unencumbered. There are many trammels: genetic heritage, DNA, metabolism, birth order, personality, events in formative years, social influences, indoctrination, habits formed into synaptic bonds in the brain, addictions, circumstances nationally, politically, economically, in addition to advertising, propaganda, paradigms and many other inhibitors.”

And this doesn’t begin to describe my limitations in controlling events and people outside myself. But in accepting that loss of control it also opens a Pandora’s Box into a frightening world of uncertainty.

Also, that part of life is learning to be at peace and happy when everything is crumbling around you.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what has worked for you to help “be at peace and happy when everything is crumbling around you?” I’m afraid I don’t know where to begin.