I had dinner with a very good friend of mine last week. I needed to talk about some things and he was willing to listen. After he heard me out and we had talked back and forth for a while, he said something to me that I had heard many times but had never understood. There was something though in the context of our conversation that the three words hit me point blank. It was like I had never heard them before or at least like I had never listened before. At a critical point in the exchange, he looked right at me and said, "David, life happens."
"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" is usually quoted from John Lennon's song Beautiful Boy released in 1980. However, he was probably quoting a Reader's Digest article by Allen Saunders from 1957. Then was Saunders the first to say this? It is entirely possible that Eve said this to Adam as they locked the garden gate behind them. Or maybe God said it to both of them as He was positioning those angels with the flaming swords.
Whoever came up with "Everything happens for a reason" meant well, I'm sure. People say this when they don't know what else to say. But it's just not true. Your life will become exponentially simpler and more meaningful when you change "everything happens for a reason" to just "everything happens."
On October 29, 2012 I was driving in the right lane of I-75 south near Dalton, Georgia. I had my cruise control set on the speed limit of 70 mph. I was on my way to a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Calhoun. Those were my plans. I glanced up in my mirror a piece of a second before a SUV plowed into my bumper. Although I was traveling at 70 mph, the impact was great enough to total my car. I was able to steer the car to the shoulder of the interstate. I was in shock, but except for severe whiplash I was very much alive. Remarkably, the car hit me square on the bumper. If he had clipped either side of my bumper, then I probably wouldn't be sitting here typing this. I'm quite sure that I wouldn't have driven away.
Did that accident happen for a reason? Did God spare my life for something special? The state of Georgia has a digital display across I-75 that counts the number of traffic fatalities in the state day by day. This display is less than a mile from the site of my collision. The last count I saw last week was 484 deaths. If I say that God spared my life that morning near Dalton, then why did He let 484 more people die on the same highways this year? Am I somehow more special to God than any or all of them? If God is making those decisions, then surely he could have spared two or three of them. Just two or three represent husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, friends, neighbors, co-workers, fishing and golfing buddies. The list goes into the hundreds of people. All 484 deaths affect tens of thousands. And God spared me?
After the x-ray tech at Hamilton Medical Center completed the x-rays of my spine, he said "You are very lucky the impact didn't break your neck." He said I was "very lucky". He didn't say that I was "very fortunate" or "very blessed.." He didn't say that my life had been spared for some good reason. He said "You're very lucky." Looking back, even the way my trunk caved in and absorbed the impact saved my neck. I'm lucky the sheet metal wasn't any more rigid than it was.
This dinner last week was not the first time this particular friend has come to my rescue. In June of 1983, during one of the worst crises of my life, he called me and offered his help. On that occasion I wasn't looking for him, he was looking for me. That call has made all the difference. It altered the course of my family's life.
To be completely fair to the person who came up with "everything happens for a reason", three of the synonyms for lucky are "fortunate, blessed and favored." If you are more comfortable with these words, then by all means use them. But just don't try to convince me that "everything happens for a reason". I have enough difficulty coping with "everything happens" without trying to figure out a reason.
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