Do you believe God makes things happen for a reason that we might learn from our mistakes kind of like a wakeup call for where we are in life?

Catholics believe in Divine Providence. This means they believe everything happens for a reason. In Catholic Theology we speak of God's positive and permissive will. Things that happen in accordance to virtue and goodness are part of God's positive Will. Things that happen in accordance to sin or evil are allowed to exist and persist due to God's permissive Will. God permits evil and its effects to exist in order that mankind can have the ability to choose - if we could not choose evil, we would not be free to love Him. Even so, God's Providence is such that He is able to bring forth good even out of the midst of evil, the often quoted idiom, "God writes straight with crooked lines" is a short meditation upon this. So it is that when evils befall us God offers us the chance to use them to our betterment. As you suggested, many times tragedy, heart break and failure cause us to look inside and reevaluate where we are in life and what we are doing. We could choose to become bitter, or lash out for the difficulties, humiliations and hardship this causes us, or we can admit our weaknesses and failures and adapt and go forward, changing for the better or steeling our resolves. Some people use difficulties as a springboard to change their own lives, and this is the way the Catholic Church advises and teaches its faithful to face such things.