Believing in Good

I’m not sure anyone can be cured of any mental health issue without first establishing a basic belief in Good. This is far more difficult than it seems and, for some, tantamount to believing in God. This is why I use the two words interchangeably. The struggle to believe is the same, whether it is reluctance to go all-in on the word “God”, which is often laden with the imagery of a bearded, all knowing, White, occasionally very angry, wizardly old man who operates with an enormous amount of rules and often conflicting messages or it is struggling to believe simply that today and all the days after it are going to go our way, come what may.

In a purely positive person’s world, every outcome has a useful and necessary purpose, even if the person in question wanted something else. The same is true for a purely faithful person. God willed it, so it must be so. When prayers are answered, God is good. When prayers go unanswered, the truly faithful respond with the “some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers” (Garth Brooks) which is the front end of “be careful what you wish for” or “there are more tears shed over answered prayers then unanswered prayers” (Saint Teresa of Avila, I think).

The ability to reset a baseline of basic belief in good, of faith in a positive outcome, or faith in a higher being probably all requires the same amount of effort. Lately, despite some really heartbreaking circumstances, I have been trying to focus on a simple idea: if God wants someone or something in my life, that means it’s good for me. If that something or someone I am hoping to have around is not in my life, that means it’s not good for me.

So far it’s going… well… good.