Everything Happens for a Reason

1. The Prosperity Gospel: A Promise Challenged by Reality

I had my own prosperity gospel, a flowering weed grown in with all the rest.

Academic background. Kate Bowler, a historian of American religion, spent years studying the "prosperity gospel," a branch of Christianity promising divine rewards—money, health, happiness—for faith and good behavior. She interviewed televangelists and observed believers seeking escape from poverty, illness, and brokenness, all hoping for a formula for success and a modicum of power over life's unpredictable tragedies. This theology offered a comforting explanation for evil, guaranteeing that faith would always make a way.

Personal prosperity. Bowler herself, despite her academic skepticism, found herself craving the certainties of the prosperity gospel. Her early life, marked by a loving marriage, academic success, and a coveted job, felt like a testament to a divine plan where every setback was a step forward. She believed God had a worthy plan for her, and her successes felt like proof of this "flowering weed" of personal prosperity.

Shattered certainty. This personal narrative of guaranteed success was brutally interrupted by a sudden, devastating diagnosis of Stage IV colon cancer at age thirty-five. The certainty she once held, that God had a clear and positive plan for her life, crumbled. This abrupt shift from a "before" to an "after" forced her to confront the inadequacy of the prosperity gospel's promises in the face of an unwanted and terrifying new reality.

2. Life's Unfairness: Shattering the Illusion of Control

Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps.

Sudden diagnosis. Bowler's life took an abrupt turn from "regular person with regular problems" to "someone with cancer." After months of unexplained pain and dismissive doctors, a CT scan revealed widespread cancer. This immediate, life-altering news plunged her into a desperate plea for survival, particularly for her young son and husband, challenging her previous belief in a just and orderly world.

Challenging fairness. The American Dream, with its emphasis on hard work leading to deserved success, underpins a belief in fairness. The prosperity gospel extends this, suggesting spiritual laws ensure good things happen to good people. However, her diagnosis, following years of personal and professional success, shattered this illusion. She realized that life does not always reward the good or punish the bad, and that suffering is not necessarily a consequence of personal failing.

Theodicy's inadequacy. The prosperity gospel offers a theodicy—an explanation for evil—by positing spiritual laws that govern outcomes. This creates a "Newtonian universe" where chaos is reduced to cause and effect, implying no such thing as undeserved pain or tragedy. Her experience, however, revealed a world where babies die in cribs, good people suffer, and the question "Why?" often has no comforting answer, exposing the limitations of such a rigid framework.

3. The Tyranny of Prescriptive Positivity in Suffering

“Everyone is trying to Easter the crap out of my Lent,” I say to my friends through gritted teeth and tears.

Unwanted reassurances. In the wake of her diagnosis, Bowler was bombarded with well-meaning but often hurtful platitudes like "Everything happens for a reason" or "God has a better plan." These reassurances, often peppered with scripture, implied that her catastrophe was a divine conspiracy to improve her, or that her suffering was a test. Such statements felt like a demand for acceptance rather than an offer of genuine comfort.

The burden of cheerfulness. The pressure to maintain a positive attitude, a hallmark of the prosperity gospel and much of American culture, became an immense burden. She felt compelled to "sugarcoat the truth with spiritual-sounding assurances and good cheer," even when facing profound despair. This "tyranny of prescriptive joy" forced her to hide her true feelings, making her feel like "only another tired cancer patient with a creeping sense of hopelessness."

Death as a punchline. Bowler observed how society, and even some religious circles, struggled to confront death directly. Speakers would make jokes about the dying, and churches would skip over the solemnity of Good Friday to jump straight to Easter's triumph. This pervasive avoidance of grief and suffering left her feeling isolated, as if her impending death was an inconvenience or a failure to be sufficiently positive.

4. Illness as an Object Lesson, Not a Divine Test

In a spiritual world in which healing is a divine right, illness is a symptom of unconfessed sin—a symptom of a lack of forgiveness, unfaithfulness, unexamined attitudes, or careless words.

Previous physical struggles. Bowler's body had "failed" her before, notably with a debilitating arm weakness during her dissertation writing. During this time, prosperity believers saw her condition as an "object lesson," a puzzle to be solved by identifying unconfessed sin or demonic influence. Her continued weakness, despite prayers and interventions, made her feel like "faithlessness personified."

The "show-and-tell" of life. American culture, much like the prosperity gospel, thrives on visible proof of success—big houses, pretty wives, honor roll students. This "show-and-tell" mentality extends to spiritual life, where health and prosperity are seen as evidence of God's favor. For those whose bodies or lives don't conform to this "divine perfection," like her friend's daughter with Down syndrome, it creates immense pressure to deny reality or "negatively confess" anything less than ideal.

Psychosomatic dismissal. Her arm pain was eventually dismissed by a doctor as "psychosomatic," a result of mental problems, further highlighting the societal tendency to blame the individual for their suffering when a clear physical cause isn't immediately apparent. This experience, coupled with the prosperity gospel's framework, reinforced the idea that illness was a personal failing rather than an unchosen burden.

5. The Paradox of Surrender and Relentless Hope

Control is a drug, and we are all hooked, whether or not we believe in the prosperity gospel’s assurance that we can master the future with our words and attitudes.

The struggle to surrender. Facing a terminal diagnosis, Bowler grappled with the Christian concept of surrender—letting go and submitting to God's will. This conflicted sharply with the prosperity gospel's "never-give-up" spirit, which views surrender as defeat and encourages relentless effort to "claim" miracles. She found herself addicted to "self-rule," pushing herself beyond limits, unable to stop fighting even when her body was failing.

The "Giant Mitts" approach. Her ingrained habit of control, which her mother called "Giant Mitts," manifested in her attempts to manage her dying process. She meticulously organized her books, gave instructions for her son's future, and even tried to dictate her friends' life choices. This desperate need to control every detail, even in the face of the uncontrollable, reflected a deep-seated fear of chaos and an inability to simply "be."

The Sisyphus complex. Bowler identified with Sisyphus, the mythical king doomed to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down. This image resonated with her relentless, often futile, efforts to overcome her illness. Despite the futility, she admired Sisyphus's persistence, revealing her own struggle to accept that "not every burden can be shouldered" and that some battles cannot be won through sheer willpower.

6. Finding "Magic" and Hope in the Cracks of the System

“Hi, this is a call from the cancer clinic. We got your results back. The doctor said to tell you that you have the magic cancer, and that you’d know what that meant.”

A sliver of hope. Amidst the grim prognosis, a phone call delivered unexpected news: she had "magic cancer"—a complicated gene mismatch repair disorder that qualified her for clinical trials. This rare genetic variation, a 3% chance, offered a potential pathway to new treatments, transforming a death sentence into a possibility of extended life. This moment, though still fraught with uncertainty, felt like a miracle.

Systemic hurdles. Even with "magic cancer," the path to treatment was not straightforward. Insurance denied coverage for the out-of-system clinical trial, presenting an impossible financial barrier of over $100,000. This bureaucratic nightmare highlighted the systemic challenges in healthcare, where access to life-saving treatment can depend on financial status and institutional connections.

The power of community. In her moment of despair, two professors, leveraging their connections, intervened. Their "love has arms and legs and momentum," shaking the institutional "bushes" to secure her a place in the trial. This experience, where "it has all been done for me," contrasted sharply with the prosperity gospel's emphasis on individual effort, revealing the profound impact of collective support and "favor" in a different, more human sense.

7. The Profound Loneliness and Shared Humanity of Grief

The world has been cracked open, and it bleeds and bleeds.

Isolation in suffering. Despite being surrounded by loving family and friends, Bowler experienced profound loneliness in her illness. The "beep, beep, beep of the heart rate monitor" underscored her isolation. She felt like "the only one in the world who is dying," struggling to reconcile her internal reality with the seemingly carefree lives of others, often expressed as "I am preparing for death and everyone else is on Instagram."

Universal laments. Her New York Times article, written in the urgency of death, opened a floodgate of letters from strangers sharing their own stories of grief, loss, and fury. These letters revealed a shared human experience of suffering, from parents losing children to disease, to individuals grappling with the unfairness of life. This outpouring of shared vulnerability created a sense of connection, showing that her pain was not unique but part of a universal human condition.

The inadequacy of platitudes. The letters also highlighted the inadequacy of common platitudes. People offered "reasons" for suffering like "God's plan" or "consequence for your sin," or minimized her pain by comparing it to their own. These attempts to provide certainty or lessons often felt worse than the cancer itself, demonstrating a societal discomfort with raw, unvarnished grief and the human tendency to seek explanations even where none exist.

8. Embracing "Ordinary Time" Amidst Radical Uncertainty

I must learn to live in ordinary time, but I don’t know how.

Living in two-month increments. Her life became a cycle of "start treatment, manage the side effects, recover, start treatment." With scans "around every corner," she lost the ability to make long-term plans, living instead in two-month increments, hoping for continued stability. This forced existence in the present, devoid of future anticipation, was a stark contrast to her previous life of constant planning and goal-setting.

The "sin of arrogance." Bowler reflected on her past tendency to always look for "the next thing," constantly planning and seeking to improve her life. She identified this as a "sin of arrogance," a failure to love what was present in favor of what was possible. Her illness forced her to confront this, challenging her to learn to live in "ordinary time"—the mundane, unheroic moments between cosmic interventions.

The cost of the in-between. Living in this "in-between" space, neither fully dying nor fully cured, came with its own unique costs. She felt like she was "keeping vigil in the place of almost death," a state few could understand. Her grandmother's experience with tuberculosis, living years in and out of sanitariums, provided a historical echo of this difficult existence, where life goes on, but forever marked by the shadow of past and potential future suffering.

9. Love's Enduring Imprint Beyond Life's Finitude

When the feelings recede like the tides, they said, they will leave an imprint.

Unbidden love. In the immediate aftermath of her diagnosis, despite feeling abandoned by God, Bowler experienced an "unbidden God"—a profound sense of being loved and supported by those around her. This "sweetness," as St. Augustine called it, was a gift, a feeling of floating on the love and prayers of her community. Though transient, this experience left an "imprint," a lasting mark of God's presence.

The desire for connection. Her deepest fear was not just dying, but being "apart"—that her son would not remember her, that her love would not endure. She longed for time to be a "connective thread that wraps us all together for eternity." This desire for lasting connection, for her love to remain even after her physical absence, became a central theme, transcending any theological debates about heaven or divine plans.

Compassion and joy as legacy. As she faced the end of her life, Bowler focused on what she wanted to impart to her loved ones. For her son, Zach, she wished for "compassion"—to be a "tough softy" who understands the world's pain but is brave in the face of heartbreak. For her husband, Toban, she wished for "joy," an almost impossible request for a man who might lose his wife. These desires, born from her suffering, became her ultimate benedictions: "Live unburdened. Live free. Live without forevers that don’t always come."