Some thingsare known only to God

I recieved this today, in an email, from someone on a message board I am on. I am choosing not to answer on the board, for reasons which will become clear as I answer it on here. I hope. The basic situation is that something was said, a long time ago, and it upset someone else, so person 2 asked the moderators about it, and the moderator said "Lets not talk about it anymore" Consequently, and several months on, all hell is *still* breaking loose. So I suggested that we leave the subject and move on.

A vantage point from someone who is MUCH older than you and who has learnt from painful experience: You do NOT have the option of "getting on with life" until you have resolved the underlying issues. Oh, you might seem to. You may fool yourself for a while...I know I did. I said: This man is different, this school is different, this career is different, I will raise my child differently, I will move on from an abusive past, I will forget the trauma I lived through... But until I faced it and worked through it, "moving on" was only running away and stuffing down feelings. Until you solve the underlying problem, you can't REALLY move on. Once you face it, then you move on effectively.

Now there are many issues that I could raise - just what does age have over experience? My mother is much older than me, but has no experience of divorce, thankfully. How does this person know just what I've been through? She doesn't. And that's ok. That's fine, because she, like all of us on the internet, has a picture of the person she thinks she knows, learnt through email, maybe through blogs, who knows, but it is almost impossible to know a person through their written words alone.

But this is not my real point.

My real point is this. Sometimes, we just have to walk on. Moving on, as this person sees it, is just running away, not dealing with the issues. In some respects she has a point. If our history is not something that we learn from, then we are destined to repeat it. But in other ways, she doesn't.

For example. Miscarriages. I have had them. At some point after each one, I had to walk on. There is no reason. I can ask and ask until the cows come home, or I can praise God for my son. I can walk into the future with him, or I can dwell in the pits of the past, wrapped in my own sorrow, and demanding answers, refusing to live my life until I *know* - but for this, there is no knowing. Some things are known only to God.

For example. Alcoholics. I married one. What makes a man an alcoholic? I could write for days about his dysfunctional family, his brilliant mind, his self image issues, but I know others with the same kinds of things going on who aren't alcoholics. So what makes him do it? Worse, he was a binge alcoholic, so he would go weeks without a drink, then spend 7 days out of his mind on cheap cider. Not even he knew why. So I left him, in the hope he would hit rock bottom and we would work our way up together. But no, his mother took him in, and he was a further 18 months a drinker. I moved on, with much, much sorrow, because I loved him, but I was no good for him. I facilitated his drinking. But did I sit and wonder why he was an alcoholic, and refuse to see another man until I knew why? No. I moved on, in faith, because some things are known only to God. Because I moved on, I was, and am able, to spend my life with an wonderful man, who enjoys a drink every now and again, but is not an alcoholic, without me worrying about his drinking, safe and secure in the knowledge that he would never raise a hand to me, never hurt me, and respects me in an honourable manner. Amazing.

For example depression.
For example not putting children first, regardless of the adults petty needs and wants.
For example murder.

For example so many, many things. If I was to seek answers for all of them, then my world would crumble around me as I navel-gazed my way to my doom. I have to have faith, to accept that there are things I do not know and to move on from them. To accept that some things are known only to God and trust that He holds that knowledge for His own good reasons. It doesn't mean I pretend they didn't happen, just that whilst I accept they did, I also accept I don't know, and I don't need to know why.

In this particular senario, is it important that I know what was said in the first place and by whom? The nosy part of me says yes, I must know! But the practical part says no, what's the point? Either we can move on and stay together, or we can't. Either way, what will be will be and is part of His plan. I do not need to know the details so that I can forgive them, forget them, and move along. I just need to have faith in the ladies around me, faith in the moderators, and the knowledge that I am working towards a future, not dwelling in the past.

If I couldn't move on without 100% of the knowledge, I would be stagnant. To continually pick at the scar that all this has left the group is meaning that the group is unable to heal. I do not know how blood and tissue, or miscommunication and misperception are mended, but I trust God enough to leave it alone and let it fix.

I don't need to know, because He does.