How do you deal with doing a good deed and then bad results?

amother

White

Sun, Apr 29 2018, 12:37 pm

How do you deal with doing a mitzvah or chessed and then something bad happens during the process or afterwards? The big things are horrible, but even small things, such as made a mistake that affects or hurts others, or making a chilul Hashem, or physically getting injured, or whatever results from it. It always bothers me, how do you view life when that happens- what is Hashem trying to teach me? It's hard to get your mind off it and then you complain that you did the good deed. How should I reframe this in my head?

momnaturally

Sun, Apr 29 2018, 12:53 pm

If you really truly tried to do a mitzvah and took the proper steps to see to it that you could do it the right way you get a mitzvah even if it doesn't work it out. Just thinking to do a mitzvah is like doing a mitzva. Certainly if it works out we get credit for it. If it doesn't work our we get an even bigger mitzva because we tried to do a mitzva and did not get the satisfaction of seeing it happen. So since it was harder for us and not as rewarding that makes our mitzvah greater.

However if we did see that things did not work out on a practical level we should not put our heads in the sand. We absolutely should use it as a learning experience so next time we can make it a success if there is something better we can do.

amother

Slateblue

Sun, Apr 29 2018, 1:15 pm

I think we still get credit for the mitzvah. The timing is not something we really can understand, because Hashem's schedule is not ours.

I know someone, an elderly person, who has been very frail for a while. For several months, she was falling almost daily. A number of people asked her and her DH, and their children, who live about 20 minutes away, to please find a full time aide, she was not safe. (The money was available.) But the elderly couple insisted they could do without, and neither children nor friends could persuade them otherwise.

Then, one evening, the old couple went to pay a shiva call, and she fell going up to the entrance of the house. She fractured her wrist, and needed surgery.

If you looked at the immediate picture, she went to do a mitzvah, and suffered greatly as a result.

But if you look at the broader picture, this was a problem waiting to happen for months.

And who's to say? Maybe if she hadn't been doing the mitzvah, the fall would have been more severe.