Sunday’s were the worst. I had to wake up early, shower, and sit in a church for an hour to listen to some priest with a sibilant whistle go on and on about stuff I didn’t understand. If my sister and I were lucky, we’d get a little packet of coloring and writing activities to do if the church was handing them out that day. As I got older though and matured, I actually started listening to the sermons and willingly went to church. My religion, like many others, was kind of forced upon me due to my family’s belief’s. I am now grateful for it though because there’s no other religion I would rather belong to. Going to church and listening to why the world is the way it is today, was my structure for what I believe in. And what I firmly believe in, is everything happens for a reason. I have always thought this even before I had my own personal evidence and experiences. 
Almost every day, I experience or see other things that could only have been God’s doing, leading back to how everything happens for a reason. People may just call it irony, but I know better than that. It’s sometimes something very little, like when I was supposed to go out of town with someone for something, but due to conflicting schedules I no longer could and there ended up being really bad weather. Dodged the bullet? No, everything happens for a reason. Or one night when I wasn’t in the best mood, I took my moms car to a park and just listened to some quiet, soft music for a bit. No harm there. But when I was on my way home I was turning onto Giles and had my phone sitting on the console so I could easily switch songs because it was hooked up to the Bluetooth in the car. As I was turning, I didn’t like the song playing so I glanced down and hit the skip button. That’s when I realized I had turned the wheel too far from being distracted and wrecked the car. It’s kind of funny because I wasn’t scared a bit that I could’ve almost just died. No, I was scared that my mom herself would kill me. Five grand and 2 weeks later, the car was as good as new. As much as I wish it never would have happened because of the guilt I hold from it, I know it had to happen because how else would I learn to never touch my phone again while the car is moving?  
That being said, I use my belief that everything happens for a reason to justify a lot of the things that do happen. I understand that things are a lot of the times avoidable, but they’re also in our control as well. I can also say that it makes coping with hard times much easier. Over spring break, I got a call in the middle of the night informing me that two deaths in my family had just occurred. Completely unrelated. It was also a little ironic that the night that I got the call, I was suffering from the stomach flu, so I was unable to make the trip out for mourning. I did, however, make it to the funeral that weekend once I had mostly recovered from being sick. A lot of thoughts consumed me at that point, one of them being why now? Why two people in one night? But I had my answer pretty quickly. Everything happens for a reason. The Lord was ready and needed them back. Knowing this helps me get through tough times like this. There’s no use in crying and moping about a lost loved one for days on end; they wouldn’t want me to do that anyway. So what I do instead is celebrate the life that they did have. I know that it was their time and eventually, it will be my time too. That’s just how the world works in my eyes. So when someone asks me what I solely and unconditionally believe in, I’ll always tell them that  everything happens for a reason.