Today's first reading for Mass is that well known passage where King Solomon says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven". He goes through a list of "a time for this" and "a time for that". It is not a fatalism that he is speaking of, but rather an acknowledgement that we have to accept the wisdom of God. He is the One Who has chosen to allow these things to happen, and if we imagine that there is only "a time for" those things we like, then we are fighting against God. There is a time for everything in creation, even when we would rather it not be so. We cannot be fatalists or stoics, but rather hopeful Christians. We are hopeful because if God has decided that this is a time for something we do not want, then we are still in His hands in the midst of it. It is better to be in God's hands in a time of misery, then out of His hands in a time of joy.