In one of my psych classes this quarter, one of our assignments was to read two books, one titled Ishmael and the other titled Man's Search for Meaning. I probably would have never read these books if it were not for this class, yet even though they were confusing at times, they brought up questions, ideas about life, the meaning of life, and made me think in ways I had never thought before.

In Ishmael, one point that is brought up in the text is about how animals eat compared to humans. It talked about how lions or whatever top of the food chain animal killed to eat, they only kill what what they are going to eat. In this way, there is always enough food for the rest of the chain. All animals on the food chain follow this rule. Ishmael went on to say that humans are the ones that break this rule. Humans kill more than they need. Humans kill for the sake of killing. 

Humans kill for the sake of killing. 

With the recent tragedy that happened in Santa Barbara, my mind keeps going back to them and this quote the last few days. I have really been struggling with human nature lately after reading these books and realizing how terrible things happen for no actual reason. 

Obviously, I know we live in a fallen world, a world that is not perfect, a world that has lots of pain and suffering. And yet, the question I find myself asking God is, why?

I think about Columbine, Sandy Hook, and so many other senseless tragedies. I don't understand how someone can actually kill for the sake of killing. My heart and prayers go out to all of the friends and families that have been affected by these terrible crimes. My heart hurts for them. 

And my thought process also went to this this could have happened in SLO. 

I think what is so sad is that we have almost come accustomed to these type of events. They happen way too often. I think we're all aware of that and I know what you're thinking, "Yeah Whit, it's true but what are we going to do about it?" 

I don't know. 

We can pray more. We can ask God to keep our families and loved ones safe. But we know bad things still happen even so and that's difficult. So, we bring in the next book I read, Man's Search for Meaning. 

This book is about the author's experience living in a concentration camp for over three years. The theme of this book was all about pain and suffering, but about how we can overcome through it and we always have choices to make even among the pain.  

One story that struck me in this book was where the author was looking back on his experience in the camp and his friend showed him a picture of a room filled with crowded bodies and not many beds. His friend thought it looked so terrible but the author looked at the picture and smiled, he said, How do you know those people are not happy? He went on to describe a time when he was in that very same situation and it was because he was in a sick room, the sick men did not have to work for a few days and they were warm because it was so cold out. The author said he was HAPPY to be in that room because he did not have to work and he was warm. 

It's all about P E R S P E C T I V E, guys. Can you imagine this guy looking back on an experience of being in a concentration camp and it is a H A P P Y memory? I can't imagine. I want his perspective. 

The thing is guys, there is always going to be pain and suffering in our world, and obviously the concentration camps were wrong, the Sandy Hook tragedy was terrible and wrong, and of course what happened in Santa Barbara was terrible and wrong too. And I still don't know what to say. It's so sad. 

But you know, God loves us so much and he is saving spots for us in Heaven if we would come to him and ask him to be in our hearts forever. I think that is what I have to remind myself when terrible things happen. Because someday I get to go be in a MORE THAN BEAUTIFUL, MORE THAN EXTRAVAGANT, MORE THAN SPECTACULAR, HEAVEN that is waiting for me with the STRONGEST FATHER who just wants to say, "Welcome home, my dear child." 

I love you friends, there's only two weeks left of school, let me know if you want to chat before graduation about anything and everything! 

xoxo, 

WhitNuggetts