nodAmanaV says above: "My opinion on this hot potato is that the degree of misfortune, struggle, affliction and so forth is the degree of the potential for success. If you're born with a silver spoon in the mouth and make it, no big surprise but if you were born without arms and legs, blind, deaf and also through a difficult family situation experience unspeakable things and in spite of this succeed anyways, what value will you have! I know this is why. This is why it is a part of the plan. Individuals who traverse life this way have a profound destiny."

Well said. There are those who say there is no god due to the fact of evil and suffering. Others have claimed that there is or may be a god but he/she/it is indifferent to mere mortals. But we are taught that evil and sin are the inherent potential and result of the great gift of free will - as expressed by the immature, the inexperienced, the self absorbed, and those minds still within the grip of primitive fears, anxieties, and the refusal or inability to love God and all others as our primary motivation for our free will choices.
To blame God for evil or to claim God is indifferent by the evidence of evil's existence is the pinnacle of misunderstanding and misplaced blame for any and all suffering. Suffering has but one source - bad choices. Bad choices bring bad results. Such blaming ones seek self absolution for their own volitional misdirection and immaturity and self absorption IMO. Or even more primitively, they blame luck or the devil for bad outcomes. This life and the one to come is all about recognition of cause and effect. God is the cause of love and mercy, mind and personality, time and space, and.....free will. Are we so dumb and ignorant and egotistical to blame God for the results of the gift of free will to such ones as us with so little experience in such a brief time on such a world?
We are born into two worlds at once. The material world and reality responds to the content and expression of love in one way and responds to self centered and fear based content in quite another. As is the individual mind so affected. The results of fear is more fear....and its consequences. The result of love is more love....and its fruits - to both the individual and the whole (as goes the parts, so goes the whole). It is this contrast and distinction that provides the fulcrum for making better choices for better reasons - both individually and collectively. We are told that those who reside wholly in the material world of animal mind and those who reside wholly in the spirit mind are not conflicted nor confused - all others of us are most definitely confused and conflicted in this dual nature and the struggle to transfer the seat of our personal identity. If we are not confused, we simply are not paying attention!
We are also taught that the truly "afflicted" among us are those who have never been afflicted by suffering. We learn thereby. Or we suffer until we do so learn....here....or yonder. Even those who suffer, not by their own choices but upon the choices of some other or all others, are provided the opportunity, within our/their suffering, to seek understanding and God and the Spirit which pours forth only love and mercy in their ministries of truth, beauty, and goodness. It is the soul that suffers and finds meaning and value thereby to suffer less and do so in recognition of and in the service of others' suffering that will be greatest among the finaliters.
It is a blessing to attend here with others who see suffering and work to relieve suffering in their compassion. Thank you.

One of my favorite Tao/Zen stories on "luck":
Maybe so, Maybe not. We’ll see.
There is a Chinese Proverb that goes something like this…
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story. Additionally, no one really lives long enough to find out the ‘whole story,’ so it could be considered a great waste of time to judge minor inconveniences as misfortunes or to invest tons of energy into things that look outstanding on the surface, but may not pay off in the end.
The wiser thing, then, is to live life in moderation, keeping as even a temperament as possible, taking all things in stride, whether they originally appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Life is much more comfortable and comforting if we merely accept what we’re given and make the best of our life circumstances.
Rather than always having to pass judgement on things and declare them as good or bad, it would be better to just sit back and say, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”
118:10.9 (1305.4) Some of the amazingly fortuitous conditions occasionally prevailing on the evolutionary worlds may be due to the gradually emerging presence of the Supreme, the foretasting of his future universe activities. Most of what a mortal would call providential is not; his judgment of such matters is very handicapped by lack of farsighted vision into the true meanings of the circumstances of life.
Much of what a mortal would call good luck might really be bad luck; the smile of fortune that bestows unearned leisure and undeserved wealth may be the greatest of human afflictions; the apparent cruelty of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature personality into the tempered steel of real character.
86:2.1 (951.3) Anxiety was a natural state of the savage mind.
When men and women fall victims to excessive anxiety, they are simply reverting to the natural estate of their far-distant ancestors; and when anxiety becomes actually painful, it inhibits activity and unfailingly institutes evolutionary changes and biologic adaptations. Pain and suffering are essential to progressive evolution.99:3.2 (1088.3) The kingdom of heaven is neither a social nor economic order; it is an exclusively spiritual brotherhood of God-knowing individuals. True,
such a brotherhood is in itself a new and amazing social phenomenon attended by astounding political and economic repercussions.
99:3.3 (1088.4) The religionist is not unsympathetic with social suffering, not unmindful of civil injustice, not insulated from economic thinking, neither insensible to political tyranny.
Religion influences social reconstruction directly because it spiritualizes and idealizes the individual citizen. Indirectly, cultural civilization is influenced by the attitude of these individual religionists as they become active and influential members of various social, moral, economic, and political groups.
99:3.4 (1088.5) The attainment of a
high cultural civilization demands, first, the ideal type of citizen and, then, ideal and adequate social mechanisms wherewith such a citizenry may control the economic and political institutions of such an advanced human society.
156:5.20 (1740.7) The God-conscious mortal is certain of salvation; he is unafraid of life; he is honest and consistent. He knows how bravely to endure unavoidable suffering; he is uncomplaining when faced by inescapable hardship.
156:5.21 (1740.

The true believer does not grow weary in well-doing just because he is thwarted.
Difficulty whets the ardor of the truth lover, while obstacles only challenge the exertions of the undaunted kingdom builder.
140:5.16 (1575.1) 1. “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” So-called common sense or the best of logic would never suggest that happiness could be derived from mourning. But Jesus did not refer to outward or ostentatious mourning. He alluded to an emotional attitude of tenderheartedness. It is a great error to teach boys and young men that it is unmanly to show tenderness or otherwise to give evidence of emotional feeling or physical suffering.
Sympathy is a worthy attribute of the male as well as the female. It is not necessary to be calloused in order to be manly. This is the wrong way to create courageous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than either Samson or Goliath. Moses was a superb leader, but he was also a man of meekness.
Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion.
140:5.17 (1575.2) 2. “Happy are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Mercy here denotes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friendship —
loving-kindness. Mercy sometimes may be passive, but here it is active and dynamic — supreme fatherliness. A loving parent experiences little difficulty in forgiving his child, even many times. And in an unspoiled child the urge to relieve suffering is natural. Children are normally kind and sympathetic when old enough to appreciate actual conditions.
