I’ve had a phenomenal streak of badness in my life the past year or so.
I get transferred from my good job to a shitty job.
I get laid of from the shitty job, that at least paid the bills
My anxiety problem flared up, making me miserable all the time
My home is becoming unliveable for various reasons, and I have no place I can move to
Last week my father, with no history of heart disease, had a heart attack and died.
During this past week my religious relatives have been attempting to comfort me and my family by saying “It’s all part of God’s plan.” I just nod and agree, to help my mother cope with her grief.
But I must vent, and here is where I shall I do it. Even if I believed in God, how the FUCK is it comforting that He planned this tragedy, and all the other problems in my life? Every time I think my life can’t get worse, another horrible thing happens, and somehow the idea that someone has planned these horrific events is supposed to make me feel better? Someone who just as well might have a dozen more things planned to make my life even worse? By what fucking twisted logic is this supposed to make my family feel better?
I appreciate the attempt, and in other ways they have helped me cope with the loss of my father, but this “It’s part of God’s plan” crap has really stuck in my craw. Believing that God planned my misery doesn’t make the misery any less miserable, and I don’t see how even a believer could get even the slightest bit of comfort from this thought. He planned this shit, so it’s just as likely he has even worse stuff planned too!
Think of “It’s all part of God’s plan” as a mantra for Christians. It is a (usually) meaningless statement made by rote - I doubt if any of your relatives consider it a theological treatise.
FWIW, I heard it many times when my parents died, and considered the speakers’ intent, not their words.
I can agree that it doesn’t really help. When stuff happens to me my Catholic family often tells me that it’s God’s plan and everything will come out right in the end. Thing is, things just seem to get worse.
For them though, I think it’s a matter of knowing someone out there knows what is going on and most importantly why it is going on. They may not see why right now but God knows why and that’s good enough for me. Perhaps they see it as a life’s lesson and that it will make you stronger someway. Personally it annoys the hell out of me too. Yeah if he has such a grand old plan, why not make things spaced out so people can deal a little better? So they don’t end up sitting there going why did this happen and eventually give up completely because everything seems futile. Of course then they will probably drag out the story of Job but I won’t go into that.
I’m sorry for your loss Revtim. Hope things get better from here on out.
Revtim, I am sorry to hear of the death of your father (on top of all the other bad things that have happened ), and I send my deepest condolences. My father also died suddenly of a heart attack many years back, and there are still many times when I miss my father being around.
As for “It’s all part of God’s plan,” it makes no sense to me either. It’s God’s plan that parents should just die out of the blue? It terrifies me to think what could be next! If I may be so arrogant, it even strikes me as a very bad thing to say to another who believes in a personal god – they likely mean well, but who wants to think that God’s plan is that their loved ones should die?
My posts to this board are often somewhat oblique, but this isn’t one of those.
I think it is important to understand that a true Christian believes that this life is only a preparation for the next one. We all die sometime, no exceptions. What is important is how we live in this world, how we use the time we are given.
It is this that comforts a believing Christian; that though we all die, it isn’t in vain, because there is an accounting of virtue and sin, and a reward for the suffering that we endure as best we can.
Is any of this true? I’m sorry, but I have no idea. . .
Wonder how the victims of horrorific crimes would feel if, as they were being killed, someone said, “It’s all part of God’s plan.”? Personally, my response would be, “Well, fuck you, God!”
Christians say it to one another because it helps them numb their minds to what’s going on. For the rest of us, it just sounds tacky.
Because most folks who believe in God aren’t comforted at the thought of the other options, like that he doesn’t care about humans or can’t interfere in our lives. Probably the best interpretation that I heard was that God is like a parent who sends us out into the world to make our own way, and that he sorrows when we do, but rarely interferes, hoping that we find the strength and the means to make it through the burdens of this world.
I can’t say I felt much comfort when people told me that when my father died either. Then again, I’ve yet to find anything comforting that anyone can say at a time like that. They’re flailing for something to say.
Hopefully no one said anything like I got from one guy: “Well maybe if he’d gone [to have his heart condition evaluated at] X Hospital instead, he’d still be around.” Yeah, that’s real fucking comforting to say in the line at the wake that maybe my dad had subpar care and that’s why his heart went into an arrhythmia in his sleep. Or you could have had some guy 50+ years your senior ogling you and your sister, and trying to hug you too much; that was really uncool as well.
Anyway, I’m sure what I said wasn’t comforting either, but maybe it helped in some way, or maybe it will soon. I’m very sorry to hear of all these troubles in your life, and do hope that neither fate, luck, nor some capricious deity has anything else unfortunate in store for you.
Thanks for your condolences folks, it’s appreciated.
I’m tempted to say “Things almost HAVE to get better,” but that’s exactly what I said at Christmas just a week or so before my Dad died, so I know that’s not necessarily true. I never had such a situation as this, where I’m at my lowest level and then get hit by something far worse than anything that’s ever happened to me before. It’s quite surreal, almost comical.
Even if more bad things happen, I guess it’s still pretty likely better times are ahead. I’ll keep that in mind.
Thanks again for your sympathies. Ferret Herder, I’m sorry that insensitive shithead made those comments. The closest thing that happened to my family in that vein is that my mom was calling the unemployment office to see if she could get an extension on her payments, and when she mentioned that her husband just died, the prick on the phone said something like “Well, he had life insurance, right? That should take of you.” No “sorry for your loss” or anything like that. She didn’t expect her loss to allow an extension, but that blunt response wasn’t very nice.
You have my deepest sympathies on the loss of your father. You also have my best wishes that the other problems in your life continue to get better. Best of luck to you Revtim.
I won’t burden you with yet another attempt to uplift you. Often, words can weight more than anything. But I want you to know that I love you, and if you would like a shoulder to cry on or a lap to dump your troubles into, I’ll arrange to give you my e-mail address.
My father died of his fourth heart attack when I was eleven years old, so I know what it’s like to lose a father. Speaking for myself, even at that age, I never really thought of him as that thing in the casket. I believe my father is alive, and I believe yours is, too.
May God comfort you and go with you now and always.
I once heard an extremely religious woman consoling someone whose parent had died horrifically: “God is merciful, although sometimes it really doesn’t seem like it.” I had to leave the room to keep from snorting.
Sometimes there is just nothing to say when you want to comfort someone. You want to make things better, but there’s no way you can, so you say something and hope that the person understands the goodness of your intent.
Right now you are living in the Valley of Shit™. I know this is nothing new to you. You are wondering, how in the hell did I slide down here from midpoint and will I ever see the top of the Mountain and be able to look down on it all again? Ohhh, run on sentance! As if you don’t have enough to deal with right now.
Having emerged from the Valley of Shit™, of which the Ujest Family did a luge, nay, skeleton run down to the bottom where we seemed to be stuck in the quick sand of poop (all of it, like yourself, was non-self induced.) I can tell you with great confidence, that this awful time period in your life will possibly be the worst you go through for a long long time.
When you emerge ( and you won’t realize it as it happens very slowly.) you won’t realize it until weeks to months later, when you realize your heart doesn’t constrict as tightly anymore and you are not clenching your teeth at the inane religious babble that some sheeple toss at you. In fact, it doesn’t bother you nearly as much.
You won’t be as raw, I promise.
The sheeple who say these things are not being mean spirited, they are comforted by the thought of the deceased being next to God, blah blah blah. The surviving family, however, would certainly rather have their loved one right back next to them where they belong.
To quote Queen Elizabeth, my close personal friend, * Grief is the price we pay for loving.*
That is just my take on it, YMMV, offer void in Hawaii.
Sorry for your loss - my brother died suddenly a few years ago, and no words made much of a difference.
The whole “god’s plan” would make a little more sense if a few things **weren’t **part of it - as in “Son of a bitch! God didn’t see **that one **coming.”
I’m sorry, Jack, I meant no harm. I’m not a pagan, but if someone wished upon me the blessings of Goddess Brigit, I would not begrudge their obvious intention of good wishes.
), and I send my deepest condolences. My father also died suddenly of a heart attack many years back, and there are still many times when I miss my father being around.