I’ve been a therapist in the community where I was born and raised for 20 years. And within that 20 years, I heard heartbreaking stories that I will honestly never forget. The most difficult to hear are the stories concerning children who witnessed or experienced things that they did not deserve or adults sharing about the lack of care they received when they were young and how they never felt as if they were somebody’s most prized possession. I’ve also had clients with severe illnesses, whether they be elderly, middle-aged, or young children. One of the things that has always struck me the most while counseling over the years is one phrase that has made me think repeatedly about what it means. That phrase is, “It was god’s plan/god’s will.” Now let me preface, this post is not about religion, nor is this to question any religion of any kind. I understand why people use this phrase. It helps them to get through some of the darkest times in their lives. It gives answers and purpose to things that are unfathomable and gives hope in times of utter despair. My question about this phrase doesn’t lie with the people who use it, it lies with the concept of it, so bear with me.
I also need to address that I acknowledge that I am not well versed or well educated in biblical or theological topics; this is a very layman’s view from someone trained merely in psychology, about this phrase. And yet still I often wonder…. If you thought about this highly used phrase, from god’s perspective, would God be desperately sad?
The way that I envision most religions, is that the “god,” whichever or whomever that may be, has been depicted as a being that created life. The religion that I am the most familiar with states that God made children out of love and his likeness. So, in my layman’s thought process, it would be as if you love something so much you create it out of love and then set it free to have all the rights to make their own choices.
If I were allowed to imagine this from God’s perceptive, how would I cope with being labeled as the root cause of everything that occurs both good and bad? If I were the Supreme Being that gave life and free will, but then I was held responsible for all the consequences that came from that free will being utilized…how would that feel? If I allow myself the complete freedom to just for a second, imagine what this god would possibly be thinking, I imagine that they may feel a little bit like this, “I gave you free will to do and make whatever choices and actions you wanted. It was the greatest gift, and you acted of your own free will. You had prosperous economic dreams but that also awakened greed. You built crops and biochemically engineered your food and beverages but that may have caused great illness and sicknesses to your bodies. I let you have the freedom to explore and from that freedom, you built imaginative ways to travel; however, those inventions cause horrible accidents and loss of lives. I gave you freedom of thought, but it also allowed you to think of ways to protect yourself from harm and others and then eventually from people you just did not like. I gave you free will and you ran with it and all I could do was watch. Then when this free will goes wrong, or sicknesses and illnesses come from the things you’ve created with your own will… the answer is that it was all my plan, all my doing?”
As a parent myself, having your children thinking that you would ever wish ill or harm to them, or think that you are planning life-threatening things to happen to them…well that would be the most utterly depressing concept. So, it often makes me wonder… does God need a therapist?