Sacrament meeting talk: When Bad things Happen to Good People

We have lived in Erie for 17 years.  When we moved here we were members of the Lafayette Ward.  There was no Rec Center or Library.  There was no Costco or Target.  

Rusty and I met over a summer break in college, we dated long distance for a year and then he dragged me from the warm, sandy beaches of BYU Hawaii to the frigid cold winters in Logan, UT at Utah State University.  I think we didn’t think that decision through…

We have three kids: Halle is 19 and a Freshman at Colorado State.  She is studying Zoology.  Josh is 16 and is a Sophomore at Erie High. He is eager for this next week to be over and have his AP tests behind him.  Blake is an 8th grader at Erie Middle.  He is looking forward to being on the drum line in HS next year. 

Our family loves tennis, pickleball, and belting broadway musicals (even though the boys won’t wnat to admit it–they can recite every single word of “Guns and Ships” in Hamilton) We love Mario Kart, Minecraft and Menchies.  We love to travel and have seen some really cool places together.  Parents with young kids–don’t lose heart–traveling with teenagers is SO MUCH FUN.  

Many of you have heard of Gretchen Rubin’s 4 Tendencies.  Upholder, Oblidger, Rebel, and Questioner.  I am a Questioner.  I was having a text conversation with my college friends and someone brought up the 4 tendencies.  So we all went and took the quiz and reported back on our results.  I said something like…”Mine says I’m a questioner, I don’t feel like it’s quite right. . What mechanism do they use to make this quiz? How did they come up with these questions?  Maybe I’m more than one thing.  Perhaps there’s a little Rebel in me too?” 

My friend Kasey, who has known me since I was 12 years old chimed in in all Caps.  TARA–YOU ARE QUESTIONING IF YOU ARE A QUESTIONER. We all had a good laugh. Questioners are motivated by reason, logic, and fairness.  And they only respond to an expectation if they conclude it makes sense. You can see how sometimes this might cause conflict in my religious life…..I like concrete answers with easy-to-follow logic. 

One question I have spent a fair amount of time pondering is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  I am here to give you all my knowledge on this subject, and I promise we’ll even have time to sing all three verses of the closing hymn. Are you ready?  Here it is: I don’t know.  Amen. 

Since you now know everything I do about the subject, I think we need a better question.  Bad things happen to good people.  Full stop.   The question becomes: Now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?”  I feel like that’s a question we can successfully explore.  

I saw a quote posted on Instagram that started with the oft heard but always misquoted, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”  Even if you aren’t a questioner like me, I think it’s pretty easy to see the flawed logic here. I can think of a million scenarios that humans definitely can’t and weren’t meant to handle. Living through war, poverty, racism, violent crime, abuse of any kind, oppressive government, untimely loss of loved ones, chronic pain, any unjust thing that happens to children, the list could go on and on. But then, all the words were crossed out except God and a new phrase was written below. It now read “God Will help you walk through the unthinkable.  You were never meant to handle it alone.” That feels better. 

In Moses, God told us this: For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

It’s such a simple sentence for such a complex work. He doesn’t include long lists of extenuating circumstances, no “if/then” statements. I take it to mean that God can accomplish his work in any circumstance. There is no life experience we can have that would stop His work from moving forward.  

To accomplish his work and his glory, God sent his Son to walk with us in hard times.  “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18).  He is the answer to the question, “When bad things happen, what am I going to do about it? We turn to the Savior. We use His Atonement to help us and heal us. 

I want to pause here for one aside.  I believe very passionately in feeling your feelings.  And I’ve spent a lot of time and money in therapy learning how to effectively do that.  I think deep feelings of grief and sadness, overwhelm, exhaustion, and a sense of unfairness are appropriate responses when bad things happen.  I believe our feelings have a lot to teach us.  They can deepen our compassion and they can spur us to action to respond to the injustices we see around us. 

There was a time in my life where if someone else standing at this pulpit said the words I just said, “Jesus is the answer” they would have elicited a hard eye roll from me. To me, the questioner, it often felt like we were missing the HUMAN component in suffering. Kinda glossing over the actual hard stuff. We’d say stuff like, “Everything happens for a reason” or “God knows better than we do” and ignore the truly painful feelings that are always present when bad things happen to good people.  Enter my favorite word: And. I think it’s perfectly ok to say, “I trust God, AND I’m really sad right now.  I believe in a plan AND I’m angry it isn’t at all what I expected. That’s real. So as we continue on, know that I am not trying to present only a cheery, optimistic view.  Being human is hard and it hurts.  

Ok. Back to the atonement. I’d like to talk about two aspects of the Atonement that I think are particularly helpful when we are going through hard things. Justice, and the Enabling Power of the Atonement.  

Let’s start with Justice.  We often think of justice as punishment for our sins.  And that’s true.  But, for the sake of our argument here today, I’d like to frame it a little differently. Justice is an eternal law, and an attribute from our Heavenly Father.  It sometimes seems scary to think about justice because we know how imperfect we are.  But Elder Holland taught, 

“However frightening it may be that all of us have sinned, however frightening it may be to contemplate a just God, it is infinitely more frightening to me to contemplate an unjust God.

A basic principle of Latter-day Saint doctrine is that we have to know that God is just in order to go forward. One of God’s attributes is justice, and we would not have the faith—because of fear—to live righteously or to love better or to repent more readily if somehow we didn’t think that justice would count for us, if somehow we thought God would change His mind and decide there was another set of rules. Because we know that God is just and would cease to be God if He weren’t so, we have the faith to go forward, knowing that we will not be the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke. That assurance is very encouraging.” 

Because Heavenly Father is Just, he sent his son, our Savoir to satisfy this demand.  Instead of being a fearful thing–it actually allows us to implicitly trust.  We know the rules won’t change mid-game.  We know that the Lord is, “Bound when ye do what I say.”  In unexpected hard times, when trials seem exquisitely unfair, we can turn to the law of Justice for comfort.  Not only will our Savior always keep his word, He has also promised us that everything will be made right in the end.  To be honest, this blows my mind.  When I think of all the atrocities the world over, I cannot imagine any scenario in which things are “all right.”  

But I don’t have to know how this will work.  I trust it because the law of Justice demands it will be so.  Elder Anderson said, “Whether in this life or the next, all will be made right. The Savior declares: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”³¹ “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”³²”

Next, I’d like to talk about the Enabling Power of the Atonement.  Elder Bednar introduced me to this topic in his very first General Conference address in 2004.  And it changed my life forever. Especially in relation to hard times.  “ In the Bible Dictionary we learn that the word grace frequently is used in the scriptures to connote a strengthening or enabling power:

“The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ.

“… It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts” (p. 697).

Thus, the enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement helps us to see and to do and to become good in ways that we could never recognize or accomplish with our limited mortal capacity. I testify and witness that the enabling power of the Savior’s Atonement is real.” 

Elder Kim B Cook said, “If you turn to Christ and repent of your sins, He will forgive you and cleanse you and change your heart.This is the redeeming power of the Atonement. 

If you turn to Christ when you face challenges and need capacity beyond your own, He can strengthen you and magnify your capacity. This is the strengthening power of the Atonement.”

• Jesus Christ gives us strength beyond our own means.  He can comfort, lift, and guide like no one else can.  And we all have access to this divine power.  What a gift.  

So, when bad things come, let’s turn to our Savior.  Let’s feel our feelings AND  also trust in His promises.  Let’s use his enabling power in our darkest moments AND reach out to those who love us to help and support us. 

Heavenly Father’s plan encompasses any and all of our life experiences. Nothing is outside his reach. Elder Holland taught that God is not the cause of our misfortunes. He responds to them. 

Adam Miller, an LDS theologian said that, when put in God’s hands, our suffering, trials, and hard times can be repurposed for growth and progress.

And Pres Nelson said, “With celestial sight, trials impossible to change become possible to endure.”

Bad things happen to good people. Full stop.  What we choose to do, and how we choose to act are the things we can control.  And remember, we are never alone.  

I want to end with the words from the final verse of “How Great the Wisdom and the Love.”  

“How great, how glorious, how complete

Redemption’s grand design

Where justice, love and mercy meet

In harmony divine.”