Faith

Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me

"It is the reason a neighbor knocked on our door to tell my husband that everything happens for a reason.

'I’d love to hear it,' my husband said.

'Pardon?' she said, startled.

'I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying,' he said, in that sweet and sour way he has.

My neighbor wasn’t trying to sell him a spiritual guarantee. But there was a reason she wanted to fill that silence around why some people die young and others grow old and fussy about their lawns. She wanted some kind of order behind this chaos. Because the opposite of #blessed is leaving a husband and a toddler behind, and people can’t quite let themselves say it: 'Wow. That’s awful.' There has to be a reason, because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else".