Because everything happens for a reason right??

That's what I've heard countless times over this past year. Everything happens for a reason. God takes all things and uses them for good. I have a very hard time not scoffing at those sort of comments these days, ones I would have used myself in years past. I will not in the future, I can assure you of that. Because I have realized that just because something happens, and though it may happen for a "reason" on occasion, it doesn't always have to have a reason, or at least a good reason, or a good outcome. Sometimes things just happen because that's life, and sometimes it sucks...really fracking bad! And though good things may come out of terrible things, do they always? And is it always God, or is it just the way he designed this universe? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction... For every good there is a bad... Yin and Yang... There is no day with out the night... But I do believe that every thing that occurs in our lives is shaped and comes out of everything we've experienced in the past. Everything. How would my life have been if my parents wouldn't have divorced? Would I have grown up in the same town with the same people with the same influences? I would have been a different person, had different opportunities. The day I suddenly decided to move in with my dad so that I could attend college was the day that changed everything in my life. I hated living with my dad. Every moment of the 18 months or so that I was there. But it brought me here. I gave me David and Aubrey and yes...even Logan. With out that decision I would have nothing that I have now. What if we'd have bought that home a few years ago? There wouldn't be an Aubrey...maybe not a Logan...Maybe Logan would have been our first baby. Everything affects everything else.

Which has had me thinking lately...how has Logan changed my life? Are there any good things that have come from it?

Logan's death gave me the courage to not care about the insignificant things in my life anymore. It gave me the strength to rid my life of the people who brought me down so low it physically affected me. It gave me a greater appreciation for the life of my daughter. On days where I'm not feeling overly raw and sensitive, it gave me more patience for her and her antics. It gave me empathy for other families who've been through a loss more horrible than imaginable, unless you've had one of your own. It gave me an anger towards God I never thought possible. Its made me question every belief I've ever had, every motive, every ounce of grace and love I've had preached at me my whole life. Its made me scoff at the very mention or thought of God. It's given me the ability to understand myself at a deeper level. Its given me a new view of my husband as both a man and a husband and even more so as a father. Its made me realize that nothing that has ever happened to me before this, and probably not likely to happen after this, was ever really that big of a deal. Its made me afraid to hope, dream and plan. It's left me feeling powerless and with out any control. Its given me cyber friends with whom I connect with on a level I don't normally connect to people in real life with. Its changed the way I dream about my future, my family and our lives together. Its made me very irritable and impatient with selfishness and insignificant wants, desires and boo hoo's of the average person. It makes me very opinionated and judgemental about other's pregnancies and choice of infant care. It makes me fear another pregnancy, and yet gives me a greater desire for another child. I have even less empathy for the average person than I did before, and that was not much to begin with. "What? Your life sucks? Well, my baby died..." I know its selfish or self centered, but it is what it is. But the "nicest" change or event to come out of my son's death is that I have made a couple of new friends whom I really like. Local friends from my daughters playgroup. Friends who I wouldn't have ever met because I would've been home exhausted and very pregnant and not out looking for a distraction. Or I would have been home with a baby and a newborn, not at all wanting to go to a playgroup. I started going to this playgroup about a month after Logan died. One of the ladies and I really connected here recently and I think I might have actually made a real (no-crazy) local friend who I have a lot in common with. I've been in this town for almost 15 years and she will be the first friend I made on my own (I have one friend through my dh, an hour away and a tad loony) who actually lives close by. Something I've needed and wanted very badly for a long time. I like her, I like her dh, her 2 kids (and a baby on the way) and my dh likes her dh. That's always a bonus. So, even though a lot has come out of Logan and his death, and not all of it is good, in fact some of it really sucks, there are a few nice things. I'm trying to focus on those nice things.

But, to be honest, I'd rather have my son than a new friend.

A new friend as a consolation prize isn't such a bad thing though. And I still don't want to hear that everything happens for a reason, because I still haven't found one that justifies my son's death. And I don't want to hear that God uses all things for his good, because that doesn't make me feel better. It doesn't offer me comfort, and it makes me wonder about the type of God who chooses to use the bad things for good. Did I really need to experience this horror?? In fact, the more I hear about God and his mercy and how blessed I am or should feel or whatever. Or, the more I hear how God has a plan for me or how much he loves me and wants to comfort me the more pissed off I get. Especially when it comes from the mouth of those who have no clue what I feel or what I have been through, and especially when it comes from the mouths of those who I feel should be supporting (if not understanding) me the most. Nothing makes me more angry than hearing any of that. The harder people push God on me the harder I push back, the more I reject it. I'm not sure why people don't see that. You want me to come back to God, shut up and let God do the talking. Nothing you say to me can convince me of anything. There is no proof in your life that backs up how great God is. Loosing Logan and being a Christian has given me a whole new perspective on how non-Christians must view Christians, how they respond and feel about God when it isn't something that's been ingrained into their heads since their youth. They must sneer at everything. Christianity must be a huge joke to them because I find it so severely hard to feel otherwise myself. God is the answer? What happens when God is the problem?

I'm not sure where that tangent came from.

Anyhow, my point is that in this coming year I'm going to try to focus on what I have and not what was stolen from me. To focus on where I am and am going and not on where I should have been. To focus on what is, and not what isn't. To focus on the good things and how I have been changed for the better, and what benefits I can enjoy now...like my new friends, and my new found intolerance for the insignificance of stupidity that has tried to drag me down my whole life.

And yet, part of me still scoffs. Because deep down, I don't think it was an even trade at all, and I'm not sure I really want to focus on the good.