Turning Tragedy Into Triumph

By Lori Lines

​If the Divine is ultimately virtuous and guided by the greatest good and highest purpose, many ask, "why do bad things happen?" It is a fair question; why would we have the added burden of misfortune and tragedy heaped upon us when our purpose is to heal, grow, and self-actualize during an existence? The truth is, life's greatest calamities and our greatest good are not always mutually exclusive! 

We see inspirational stories all the time of people who have lost jobs, homes, loved ones, mobility, and limbs, surmounting their obstacles to become leaders, heroes, and healers. We watch these people in admiration, applauding them for overcoming their challenges to reach the pinnacles of success. We often fail to realize that instead of being victims of misfortune, these people are co-creators of fate. 
 
Thinking of tragedies as happenstance misfortune or even punishment for misdeeds is an oversimplification. Whether on a personal or communal scale, life's calamities can serve a purpose, a higher purpose!
 
Tragedies can be 
Predestined – a karmic occurrence someone decided on, in their Divine state, before this lifetime began, as a preselected opportunity for healing, growth, or enlightenment.

Catalysts for reflection – a Divine intervention meant to trigger awareness, consideration, and understanding of our choices and their repercussions while often promoting accountability.

Catalysts for change – a Divine intercedence meant to redirect our current misaligned path back to the Divinely orchestrated course. This often features a shift from a lack of accountability to personal sovereignty. 

It can be hard to fathom, but in our Divine state, as we co-design our life paths, we may choose to face a chronic illness, heartrending loss, or traumatic experience because, as our higher selves, we understand how these tragedies will allow us to overcome karmic cycles, gain wisdom, or achieve ascension.

Take, for instance, someone who goes from lifetime to lifetime, failing to accomplish their life goals or achieve their purpose. During this lifetime, they may subconsciously plan a cancer diagnosis or the loss of a spouse because these cataclysmic events may help them better appreciate the preciousness and temporality of life, motivating them to make the most of this lifetime instead of squandering it like they did the ones before.

In similar ways, these events could be a tool used by the Divine to awaken someone to the repercussions of their choices such as smoking, poor work-life balance, toxic relationships, or the mismanagement of stress. These tragedies could be the wake-up call someone needs to place more value on life and truly living, leading them to assume accountability for their health and wellbeing, choosing a healthier, more balanced lifestyle. This may even lead to one writing a book, becoming a coach, or inspirational speaker, guiding others to make wiser, holistic lifestyle changes for themselves. Therefore, the cancer diagnosis or loss of a spouse is a catalyst for reflection and change on the individual and communal level. And just like that, one individual's tragedy could be a gift not only to themselves but to millions!

There are also times when the collective suffers so that together we may awaken, heal, grow, and ascend. Thinking back to natural disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami, World Wars, or deadly attacks like the Oklahoma City Bombing, while heartbreaking, they have helped pull back the veil, shifting the collective consciousness, triggering awakening to truth, fostering growth, and healing.
 
For illustrative purposes, imagine a natural disaster so large in scale that it leaves the globe in crisis. As a predestined event, this may be a collectively selected moment in time for us to awaken to the reality that our reliance on established institutions is based on fallacies we have been conditioned to believe.

 This widespread enlightenment can be seen as an opportunity that could lead to a dismantling of these institutions, a return to a more people-centric lifestyle, fostering a more loving, unified society.

The natural disaster may also be Divine intercedence, meant to awaken society to our mistreatment and disregard of nature and humanity, causing us to reflect on ways to live more harmoniously with the earth and each other. This, in turn, could again lead to the toppling of fallacious social constructs, bringing people together, inspiring us to give and receive more unconditional love, leading to the reunification of the collective and mass ascension!

It's essential to highlight that while tragedy can further the greatest good and highest purposes, these transformative events can be rendered futile without accepting accountability, individually or collectively, because destiny and free will are inextricable. Destiny without free will is bondage and victimization, but we are sovereign. Whether we wield our free will intentionally as a tool or unintentionally as a weapon against ourselves, we exercise our sovereignty with our every thought, word, and action.

 It is only when we take accountability for our choices and our free will to select them that we can become co-creators of destiny, gaining the power to shape our future and turn tragedy into triumph!

In love and truth,
Lori Lines

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