Do you believe everything happens FOR us, not TO us?

That's what I tell their victims as I scoop out their kidneys. "Everything happens for a reason, what doesn't kill you makes you --" (and then they black out from blood loss) 😵

I prefer to keep it simple... Both thoughts to me anyway, involve some sort of plan...i don't believe such exists... Is just a case of shit happens

Life is about learning. Learning happens through lessons. Lessons repeat until we have grasped the core teaching of our experiences. These are in the way of hardships because complacency or stability isn't a motivator of growth.
There is a bigger picture, going into soul growth and ascension to which our life journey feeds into. I won't go into this right now.
Regardless of your beliefs on the soul level, at the life level it is about walking the journey (some call it the heros journey) and integrating all the parts of ourselves that have been defragmented, so we can find a wholeness in ourselves.
Unfortunately, until we heal and integrate, we will keep repeating these experiences in one form or another.

@Coralmist i think persecution of any sort happens too you as you have no direct control over it and do not ask for it . far as for you on the other side of the coin good things can come your way by good luck

The only benefit might be to make you more wary and tougher.

A weak mouse in the open could be pounced on by a cat more easily. So if strength and wariness is genetic, the world will select for that. And then cats are selected to be better hunters. A never ending race. But if cats eat all the mice, both die out. Yet hungry cats won't make it, and enough mice evade cats, so things are in balance.

So sorry cats made you suffer.

Perhaps the only remedy is a guard dog to keep the cats at bay? Or better yet, owners should keep their cats well fed.

No

Neither. Life is change. It's up to us which direction the change will happen.

This includes other forms of life.