Remember the last time you were waiting in a hospital for the medical staff to tell you what was going on with your loved one?  Most of those waits occur at night for some unknown reason.  It seems the wait is even worse then.  Questions flood your mind.  The most common and first asked questions begin with the word “why.”

We seem to go through a series of “Why?” questions.  Why did this happen?  Why is this happening to me (or us)?  Why now?  We want to know why but there is no clear answer, often just more questions.

Sometimes the why questions yield some answers.  “Why did this happen?” The answer may be that someone made a mistake.  Maybe it was my mistake or maybe it was the medical staff.  Maybe it was an accident.  There is some comfort in finding someone or something to blame for what is happening. The answers seem to bounce around your mind like your voice echoes in an empty and sterile hospital room.

How begins another series of questions.  How can I make it stop?  How can I ever move on with my life?  “How” echoes through the emptiness too. You feel stuck because there is no answer to these questions.

Closely affiliated to the how questions are the “when questions.”  When will it stop? When will this roller coaster of pain stop?  Is there an end in sight?

We always think that any painful situation lasts too long.  Even the pain of a paper cut may last for a moment or two, yet it seems much longer at the time.  The pain of a broken heart, the anxiousness of waiting, all seem to take so long.  That length of time, the long wait, amplifies our doubts, questions, anger, and other feelings associated with painful situation we are facing.

But what if we are asking the wrong questions?  Of course, these are normal questions.  Everyone asks them–over and over again.  This is human nature.  We want to know why so we can deal with the situation in some rational and helpful way. We may look for someone to blame so we can channel our anger in that direction and find some temporary relief.  And since the pain seems to be lasting forever, we wonder when it will stop. We feel stuck and helpless.  What if “why” is the wrong question?

If we open ourselves up to the idea that we can learn something from all this, we start down the path toward asking better questions.  Better because there are answers.  Answers that satisfy. Answers that make sense.  Answers that bring some relief to the pain we are feeling. Answers.

“What” is a good beginning point.  What can I learn from this?  What strength will come from this experience?  What can I teach other’s who will walk a similar path of pain?

“…everything that has happened to us is a potential gift: our wounds, our disappointments, our idiosyncrasies, and our failures.  This is not to glorify pain and sorrow, but to affirm that such things can be transformed into a gift.”  by Alan Jones in Exploring Spiritual Direction, page 76