Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

It's a pretty thought-provoking question, no?

It's no secret that the past fourteen months of my life have been difficult.  If you frequent this blog, you know they've included the most difficult times of my life to date.  I've hit some of my lowest lows, and after many, many months of feeling alone and abandoned out in the middle of a seemingly endless darkness, a darkness no one truly understands... I finally feel like I'm starting to grab onto a life raft to float back to shore.

Life has a funny way of shaking all of your dreams until they turn into something you'd never imagined.  A year ago, I never would've dreamed I'd be living in an entirely different state, far away from the comforts of the life I knew.  A year ago, I never would've imagined we'd be deep in the throws of such aggressive fertility treatments, treatments that have already begun to take over my body and my entire self.  Treatments that, lately, have left me with many sleepless nights - wondering, worrying, scared - tossing and turning and hoping and praying.

I've definitely spent a lot of time soul-searching lately, hence the title of this post.  And while I promise not to be too melodramatic, as I usually am in my little corner of the internet universe, I can't help but constantly ask...

        Does everything happen for a reason?  

I'm truthfully not entirely sure... it's a question I often wonder about, and may never know the answer to.  It's a question I've asked a lot, especially lately.  

Does God have a plan?  I am sure of this, though it's tough to hear words like that when you're alone and in a very dark place.  Because when you're stuck in the storm, and you can't find shelter, the last thing you want to hear is "Everything happens for a reason," or "Don't worry, God has a plan."  It doesn't mean you don't believe these two statements; however, it's hard to believe that you are ever supposed to experience such suffocating grief.  There are so many times in our lives when we can look back and say, "Oooooh, NOW I understand why that happened."  But when you're not on the other side yet, when you're still surrounded by heartache and fear and worry and disappointment and everything feels unfair... the place of understanding why it all happened seems so far away, too far away.

So until I find my way to the shore, climb up, and push through to the other side of all of this, I'm continuing to cling on to the hope that one day - some day - it will all make sense.  One day - some day - the pieces of the past year will come together to create a picture that may not be perfect, but is unmistakably beautiful.