You don’t have to tell me. I know. 

When it hurts you want to understand it all and you want to understand it immediately. 

The older and the wiser remind you that your life is the proverbial tapestry and that all these dangling, swaying, knotted strands will one day be weaved into their proper place. Oh, yes. You could certainly make a comfortable living off the phrase ‘everything happens for a reason’. 

To an extent, you believe it. The sentiment within that trite phrase. But the well-meant reassurance doesn’t soothe your frustration. It doesn’t press out the confusion that’s crinkled in your mind. Because with it comes an announcement. A town-crier calling out across the square:

There is a reason.

And if there’s a reason, there must be a means to understanding. A way to wrap your head around pain and injustice and brokenness. 

You convince yourself that acceptance will come with making sense of how all the strands should fit together. 

Do you realise what you’re trying to be? Omniscient.

All knowing. All perceiving. All understanding. All wise.

You’re trying to be God.

The thought strikes heavy, ringing realisation’s bell. 

You see it for yourself now. How your hurt has caused you to grasp at every thread and frantically attempt to sew them into understanding. But you know … deep down, you know. It won’t help. You’ll become tangled in the infinity of strands, burdened with a task too vast for your humanity. 

The best thing you can do right now is take a breath. Unbuckle that burden from your shoulders and set it away from you. You don’t need it.

You don’t have to understand everything.