There's no good reason I can come up with why bad things happen to us. To be be truthful, I don't really know, but maybe this little story will help you understand that however bad the thing is, you can make life go on, you have to.
It happened to a friend of mine, Paul Biggs by name. He was doing great in his job. He had a great future ahead of him, so great that he was offered to be the director of his company, an online company that was flourishing beyond expectations.
A few weeks before the promotion took place Paul was kidnapped. Suddenly, no one knew of his whereabouts. The old director at his company continued at the helm, hoping that Paul, the bright entrepreneur, would soon come to occupy his new position.
The days went by and no one heard about Paul until his family got a call demanding a random of a million dollars for his return. Paul, together with his mother, had been depositing money in a joint account they had opened with the intention of saving up enough to start a real estate business just outside of Erie, Pennsylvania, their hometown, but they hadn't saved up not even half of the amount solicited for his release. What were they to do now to get him out?
The days dragged on as they tried hard to borrow from friends and relatives and get a loan from several credit institutions. They were now nearing the quantity when one day one of Paul's little fingers arrived in a bag to remind his family that his kidnappers meant business. If they didn't get the money, they were going to keep sending parts of his body until there were no more left to send.
The local police had gotten involved in the situation, but instead of helping they made things worse seeing that they began to run ads on some of the most outstanding social networks and somehow the kidnappers saw them.
The following week one of Paul's little toes arrived at his family residence warning them to keep the police out or they would end Paul's life immediately.
Not wanting that to happen, they begged the police to withdraw and made haste to reach the amount needed for his rescue.
Finally one day with the help of the mayor they came up with the desired amount and negotiated Paul's release. He was happy to get out although his life became traumatized because of his missing body parts and a few weeks after that his mother died of a heart attack.
Paul didn't know what to do now as his life seemed to be going from bad to worse. All he could do was pray to God to change his plight. But little did he know that nothing of the sort was about to happen. Instead,the trend of bad things continued to befall him when one day a trailer truck ran into the back of his car and lodged him under a dump truck that was in front of him.
A few days later Paul woke up in Shriners hospital with an excruciating pain in one of his eyes. Suddenly he realized that one of his legs was broken for he could see it hanging above the bed in a cast, and although he could feel an intense pain coming from it, it was the eye that caught his attention for it was more painful than the leg. Suddenly he turned to a nurse who was standing by and asked her if he had lost the eye. She nodded before she held on to his good hand and ascertained him that only good things can happen to him from now on.
And that's what happened to Paul after he became director of his company and launched it to great heights. Something good came out of everything he laid his hands one in spite of all the bad things that had happened to him.
Hilton was born in Jamaica, but grew up in Baltimore, MD. He was educated at Loyola College and has written a series of eleven books. Among them are: Why Did It Have To Happen To Me? Success For All, Gloria Grand, Goddess of the Arawaks and The Gold Briefcase. He is married and lives with his wife and three children. They fluctuate between Atlanta and Mexico City.