The Barefoot Evangelist

Few phrases are offered with better intentions – or land with less comfort – than, “Everything happens for a reason.” Most people who say it are trying to ease someone else’s pain. They want to reassure a grieving parent, a friend facing a diagnosis, or someone whose life has just fallen apart. I understand the impulse. Silence is uncomfortable, and we want to believe there is some larger purpose behind suffering. But good intentions do not automatically make good theology, good psychology, or good pastoral care.

The problem is that the phrase quietly asks people to accept the unacceptable. If everything happens for a reason, then what reason explains abuse? What purpose required a child’s death? Why should someone believe that betrayal, violence, or disaster was somehow necessary? For many people, those words don’t offer hope – they add another burden. Instead of being free to grieve, they are left wondering what lesson they were supposed to learn or why God would choose such a cruel teaching method.

I have never found that answer satisfying. It feels less like wisdom and more like a way of ending a difficult conversation. Sometimes terrible things happen because people make terrible choices. Sometimes illness, accidents, or natural disasters simply occur in a world that is beautiful but also fragile. We don’t honour suffering by pretending it was all part of a tidy plan. We honour it by acknowledging that it is real.

What people often need isn’t an explanation. They need someone willing to sit beside them without rushing to solve the mystery. A meal dropped off at the door. A ride to an appointment. A listening ear. A hand to hold at a funeral. Presence almost always speaks more deeply than certainty.

So perhaps it’s time to retire this familiar phrase. Simply put, we don’t have any way of knowing if this is true. There is wisdom in admitting that some questions remain unanswered. There is compassion in resisting the urge to explain away another person’s pain. And there is hope – because even in the darkest moments, we can choose to face them together.