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Experienced suffering and later seen why it had to happen?
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amother
Forestgreen


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 7:48 am
amother [ Babypink ] wrote:
Yes. My DH has to be married to someone else and have children with her and watch her die before he could marry me. Obviously Hashem wanted both of them to go through that, Hashem wanted those children to be born, and Hashem wanted me to go through certain suffering as well before I married DH and had more children.

You don’t believe Hashem can bring together 2 people at any time He wants? Of course He can. Hashem has a plan. Not everyone gets to marry their bashert at age 20. People need to go through suffering alone before they get married. Why does that seem bizarre to you?



The title of this thread is "experienced suffering and later seen why it had to happen". In other words the suffering or bad circumstances didn't make sense at the time, but later on the pieces came together and it now makee sense.

So usually when there is a good ending to the story, people say it makes sense. This is completely bizarre to me. In your situation, it's wonderful that you found your bashert and have good shalom bayis and I'h it should continue till 120. That being said, do we now understand why hashem wanted so many people to suffer along the way? Why you had to suffer, your dh had to suffer, your step chidren had to go to their mothers funeral, all so that you would be at the perfect time in your life to marry dh? If you were god, would you have planned it this way? Of course not. You'd have done virtually every single thing differently. Therefore it's bizarre to say that we now understand hashems plan and it makes a little sense when in fact literally none of it makes sense to us.
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amother
Red


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 7:51 am
PinkFridge wrote:
I've been liking posts right and left but re the bolded: The humility, true gratitude, and (no surprise) grace behind this is worthy of being pinned.


Well spotted pink fridge. I totally missed it and totally agree with you.
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amother
Red


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 7:56 am
It all depends how you define"good ending". If "good ending" means I came to Know Hashem better, then yes I have seen this. If "good ending" means I Emulate Hashem better, then unfortunately no, I see how I have failed and at this point suffering has made me be more horrible (ie less kind) person. I hope that this is not the end of the story though.
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amother
Forestgreen


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:09 am
PinkFridge wrote:
Why did Avrohom and Sora have to be married for decades before having Yitchok?




I'm sure there are many explanations, but I can't compare our dor and understanding of hashem to Avrohom who literally spoke with and had conversations with hashem.
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amother
Forestgreen


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:21 am
Yoyo613 wrote:
YES!
Tsadik vera lo rasha vetov lo. Its a question that you are not the first one to ask. It was asked thousands of years ago.This needs a full lesson from someone knowlegeable. If someone remembers the points maybe put it here.

Tomim tihiye im Hashem Elokecho.



Yes We have seen a huge chesed and refuah before the maka. Its too early to put in public but we point out to our family members. Something bad happened. Then it turned out later that Hashem spared us lots of pain and a lot of problems thru that bad.



How is this good? It At face value, an honest perspective would be, it's bad and could have been worse.

I realize that we are all so (understandably) desperate to paint a picture of hashem as a loving and kind father, who we can talk to and he'll listen, who cries with us over our pain, that we talk ourselves into things that in truth, make no sense.
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amother
Plum


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:22 am
I applied for a job I really wanted (and needed) and even though I really thought I would get it, I didn’t.
I remember being so upset about it.
Then we were making plans to move countries and nothing seemed to be working out- we couldn’t make the move final.
In that time I took on a part time evening job that soon became my full time job and when we did move I continued working this job!
I really saw why all those delays happened and why I couldn’t get the previous job.
All of it had to happen so I could get this one job that was perfect for me to continue working when I moved! The pay was much better than I would’ve got if I found a job where I moved to, the job is a better job than I would’ve found. In all it worked out really well bh
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amother
Aqua


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:31 am
amother [ Forestgreen ] wrote:
How is this good? It At face value, an honest perspective would be, it's bad and could have been worse.

I realize that we are all so (understandably) desperate to paint a picture of hashem as a loving and kind father, who we can talk to and he'll listen, who cries with us over our pain, that we talk ourselves into things that in truth, make no sense.


This world is not meant to be all good - it is a place for us to work on ourselves. One part of that is by trying to see the good in everything Hashem does. Without the belief that everything is, ultimately, for the good, how does one remain frum (or even sane)?
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STMommy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:37 am
I went through what was for me a terrible traumatic experience. I started therapy when I wasn't getting over it. I wound up staying in therapy for 1.5 years where I got to work on other major things that needed work. I still use the tools I was given. If not for the horrible situation, I never would have entered therapy, I would have just continued suffering. I might be divorced and unemployed today if I hadn't changed my life as I did.
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sushilover




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:44 am
When I first got married I was had a surgery that was a total failure. It was very painful and it didn't help at all. A few years later I was experiencing pain from the scar tissue, went to see my surgeon who discovered a cancerous mass. By "coincidence" this surgeon worked with the top specialist in the country for that kind of cancer, so I was able to see that oncologist right away. Here's the clincher, the oncologist told me that the mass was too small to feel and is hardly every caught so quickly. The scar tissue from my first surgery may very well have saved my life. It certainly saved me from having to go through the more aggressive treatment required for larger masses.
So the first surgery, which seemed to be pointless pain and a failure, was really important.

Well, I decided to share my story with our rav, thinking that he would love it. What a perfect example of seeing the reason behind my pain, right?

My rav hesitated after I told the story, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell me what he was going to say. And he told me this:
Don't you think Hashem was able to find some other way of catching the cancer before it got bigger? A way that didn't involve a painful surgery and scar tissue?
G-d is not limited!
You didn't go through pain in order to catch the cancer. You went through the first surgery because for some reason you were meant to go through it. Your soul needed that for some reason.
The fact that later on you were able to see the good come from it, is certainly a chesed, but it is not the reason.

To be honest, what the rav said completely changed my worldview. I had never heard such a concept before.

My friend recently expressed the same thing. She got engaged after years of being in the parsha, which was very painful. Her chosen is a BT. People told her, "wow! Now you know why you had to wait so long! While you were davening to find him and dating all those duds, he wasn't even religious yet!"
She politely agreed with them, but told me privately, "Hashem could have helped him become religious ten years earlier. Or He could have made me be born later so I wouldn't have to spend all that time in shidduchim. I went through those years because that was what I was meant to go through. No other reason."
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simba




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:45 am
No. We will never understand why it happened. It happened because Hashem willed it to be that way.
We may be lucky to catch a tiny benefit from the situation at some point in our lives. Still a far cry from knowing why it happened.
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amother
Chocolate


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:50 am
STMommy wrote:
I went through what was for me a terrible traumatic experience. I started therapy when I wasn't getting over it. I wound up staying in therapy for 1.5 years where I got to work on other major things that needed work. I still use the tools I was given. If not for the horrible situation, I never would have entered therapy, I would have just continued suffering. I might be divorced and unemployed today if I hadn't changed my life as I did.


I had similar. My 7 yr old developed night fears when I moved to New apt. I took him to a clinic that assigned therapy for free. They assigned him someone for play therapy. Since it was summer & slow they asked me if I need someone for myself? My son only went for the few summer weeks. I ended up going for 1.5 years to tackle my marriage problems & it changed my life.
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southernbubby




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:52 am
Hashem directs the steps of man but we don't know why some are spared and others not. There are loads of stories stemming from the tragic episode of 9-11. Many people who were aggravated to be late for work were both grateful to be alive and grief stricken at the loss of the co-workers, as the events unfolded.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 8:55 am
amother [ Forestgreen ] wrote:
I'm sure there are many explanations, but I can't compare our dor and understanding of hashem to Avrohom who literally spoke with and had conversations with hashem.


Ah, so it was easier for them to know that it came from Hashem so it made it more tolerable. I think I might have even heard something along those lines.

But we are the post-prophecy era. We have, deep within us, the capacity to see Hashem in the dark. I base this on something Rabbi Reisman said at the end of his Yirmiyahu series. If you look at the beginning of Pirkei Avos, Moshe kibel Torah, etc., it ends with Anshei Kneses Hagedolah. That is the last generation of the mesorah. And we're still there.

Prophecy ended. Things were no longer black and white. The Anshei Kneses Hagedolah gave us the great gift of tools to navigate galus, in tefilla and other ways. You probably know the famous thought about the words HaKel, hagadol, hagibor, v'hanora in Shemoneh Esrei. It might not always seem this way but we have an ability to do something that the people of the prophetic era couldn't, and that is see Hashem even in the murkiness of galus.

So of course we're not on the madreigah of Avrohom and Sora but to accept the reality of Hashem being behind absolutely everything, with a Divine plan? That we can do.
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amother
Linen


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:01 am
sushilover wrote:
When I first got married I was had a surgery that was a total failure. It was very painful and it didn't help at all. A few years later I was experiencing pain from the scar tissue, went to see my surgeon who discovered a cancerous mass. By "coincidence" this surgeon worked with the top specialist in the country for that kind of cancer, so I was able to see that oncologist right away. Here's the clincher, the oncologist told me that the mass was too small to feel and is hardly every caught so quickly. The scar tissue from my first surgery may very well have saved my life. It certainly saved me from having to go through the more aggressive treatment required for larger masses.
So the first surgery, which seemed to be pointless pain and a failure, was really important.

Well, I decided to share my story with our rav, thinking that he would love it. What a perfect example of seeing the reason behind my pain, right?

My rav hesitated after I told the story, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell me what he was going to say. And he told me this:
Don't you think Hashem was able to find some other way of catching the cancer before it got bigger? A way that didn't involve a painful surgery and scar tissue?
G-d is not limited!
You didn't go through pain in order to catch the cancer. You went through the first surgery because for some reason you were meant to go through it. Your soul needed that for some reason.
The fact that later on you were able to see the good come from it, is certainly a chesed, but it is not the reason.

To be honest, what the rav said completely changed my worldview. I had never heard such a concept before.

My friend recently expressed the same thing. She got engaged after years of being in the parsha, which was very painful. Her chosen is a BT. People told her, "wow! Now you know why you had to wait so long! While you were davening to find him and dating all those duds, he wasn't even religious yet!"
She politely agreed with them, but told me privately, "Hashem could have helped him become religious ten years earlier. Or He could have made me be born later so I wouldn't have to spend all that time in shidduchim. I went through those years because that was what I was meant to go through. No other reason."


Why all or nothing view point? Why can't it be true that Hashem gave you a lesser pain in order to prevent your cancer, a larger pain? You were meant to go through pain, and Hashem granted you the kindness of the lesser pain over the greater, perhaps because you were already achieving rectification with so much suffering? And the amazing connection that one disease led to curing the other!! So you needed suffering, but can also connect the dots? Tremendous revelation of good in your life!

I have definitely seen my own suffering bring about great purpose and good. Yes, I was meant to suffer, and yes I can see the good that it brought about. And yes, the revelation of the good was in itself a chessed. If you can see the good, why turn away from Hashem's chessed?
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:04 am
amother [ Forestgreen ] wrote:
How is this good? It At face value, an honest perspective would be, it's bad and could have been worse.

I realize that we are all so (understandably) desperate to paint a picture of hashem as a loving and kind father, who we can talk to and he'll listen, who cries with us over our pain, that we talk ourselves into things that in truth, make no sense.


If we choose to believe in Hashem, then it's axiomatic He's omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. To think in terms of Him as less than good also makes no sense.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:06 am
amother [ Aqua ] wrote:
This world is not meant to be all good - it is a place for us to work on ourselves. One part of that is by trying to see the good in everything Hashem does. Without the belief that everything is, ultimately, for the good, how does one remain frum (or even sane)?


All obvious good. But there is a plan. Things run according to the ratzon Hashem, which is absolute rightness.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:09 am
southernbubby wrote:
Hashem directs the steps of man but we don't know why some are spared and others not. There are loads of stories stemming from the tragic episode of 9-11. Many people who were aggravated to be late for work were both grateful to be alive and grief stricken at the loss of the co-workers, as the events unfolded.


Rabbi Reisman said at a 9-11 gathering, maybe around the time of shloshim, that there were tremendous hashgacha pratis stories but we have to remember that the people who were trapped in the towers were also experiencing hashgacha pratis.

As I type this I heard that Doris Day died at 97. Why did she get 97 years when others haven't?
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:11 am
amother [ Red ] wrote:
It all depends how you define"good ending". If "good ending" means I came to Know Hashem better, then yes I have seen this. If "good ending" means I Emulate Hashem better, then unfortunately no, I see how I have failed and at this point suffering has made me be more horrible (ie less kind) person. I hope that this is not the end of the story though.


I'm sure it isn't.
And you're still a lot further in the game than other people with your experiences.
Hug
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amother
Black


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:12 am
Of course Hashem could have made things easier. After all, He can do anything. He has creative options I can't even dream about. The fact that He chose this path for me means that He knows something I don't.
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amother
Aqua


 

Post Mon, May 13 2019, 9:22 am
PinkFridge wrote:
All obvious good. But there is a plan. Things run according to the ratzon Hashem, which is absolute rightness.


True, there is a plan which we are not necessarily meant to see. Also, the "good" is not always easy or good for everyone - in order for plony to get an organ transplant, almoni has to die. This is obviously good for almoni, ultimately good for plony (kappara in his death and zechuyos from saving a life) but may not be good for plony's loved ones - in this world. I guess that is what you mean by obvious good. Much of what we perceive as "not good" is there to help us to work on ourselves.
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