We recoil at the thought that bad things happen to good people.  We want to believe that when we do virtuous acts then there should be benefits that follow.

Then something bad happens to us and the bubble of innocence dissolves.  We are confused about how the world really operates.  The world feels differently now.

Our eyes are opened to the knowledge of good and evil around us.  We begin a soul searching journey of asking questions that refuse to be answered.

Spiritually, we wonder if there really is a God who rewards the righteous and punishes the wrongdoer.  Believing this is a settled matter gives us comfort and assurance that we live in an ordered world.

So, we restrain the impulses of our lower nature knowing that the God who sees everything will hold us to account.  But now we wonder.

The fact that we are wondering such matters brings disappointment to our souls.

While riding late one night with a dear friend, Police Officer Callan Nelson, he described the loss of innocence “as the naive feeling that the world is not what it should be and people are not what they should be.” Then Callan made his insight personal:

“The real innocence I lost was learning what I was capable of doing.”