Difficulties are not Punishments

How I wish I had known the language to express this simple idea to my mother before she died.

I have always suspected this; I knew that life brings difficulties and trials to everyone. But I had to learn this for myself. My poor mom always believed that a problem-free life was possible and desirable, and that somehow she was being punished when she had a difficult experience.

Because this was my mother's worldview, I of course absorbed it on some level. I think I believed it at one point in my life. But of course, with experience I have found that nobody gets through this life without problems. Nobody. The problems may be different, of course, but everyone has them. Princess Diana was a prime example. She was highborn, wealthy, beautiful, famous, had two darling boys, but was never happy. She cast about looking for happiness, but died tragically never having found it. (It didn't help that her husband was unfaithful. But still.)

But, Old Testament aside, God does not send us difficulties to punish us. Rather, he has set a world in motion, and the fallen state of it has given us problems to overcome. We have to work, labor to give birth, suffer the frailties of our human bodies, and we are affected by the mistakes and sins of others as well as our own.

We therefore must make it a priority to look for the good things we experience rather than dwell on the things that are imperfect or negative. Sometimes it feels as though there are no good things at all, but we can search among the weeds for the wildflowers. They are there.