Life. Is. Not. Fair.

The semester is almost over, and although things are heating up, we have been feeling more peaceful and excited because THE HOLIDAYS ARE UPON US!!!!!  Phil says Christmas music is only for after Thanksgiving, but I sneak it when he's not around.  He knows anyway and wants me to know that he very much disapproves.  BUT I DON'T CARE--it's cold out and that means one thing and one thing only--CHRISTMAS.  I'd even have the tree up by now if it were up to me and if I had time to help take down the Halloween decorations.  (But I don't want to talk about that.)

Phil's got a good point though--it is actually important not to jump from Halloween to Christmas so quickly.  Our society is not known for practicing gratitude on a regular basis, and so it's a good exercise for all of us to make the conscious decision to be grateful for one day in November.  This year, when so much has happened to us, I want to do one better.  I want to give myself five days of Thanksgiving, to remind myself what a charmed and blessed life I lead, even in the midst of sad and difficult times.

Today is Day 1 of my 5 Days of Thanksgiving challenge, and I'd like to start with a hard one:  I'm thankful that life is not fair.

For the two years that Phil and I struggled with infertility, I was constantly reminded that life was not fair.  Friends who had no desire to be pregnant got pregnant accidentally from a one time thing while we temped and timed and monitored and prayed, night after night, month after month, year after year.  Others we knew terminated healthy pregnancies that they didn't want, while we struggled with losing the one thing we wanted the most.  Friends who were younger than we are had their second, third, and even fifth children.  Things kept happening to remind us that this was really hard for us, while seemingly everyone else got to have what we wanted without even trying, and sometimes they weren't even happy with the incredible gift they were given.

Looking at the same issue but from a larger perspective, I have met many people through this blog, at our church and on YouTube who are in the same boat as we are, and that's made me feel like less of a freak; however, it hasn't helped me in my struggle to understand why things are so unfair.  ALL of the people that I've met that are struggling with fertility issues or pregnancy loss are wonderful, responsible, loving adults who would make incredible parents.  Any child of theirs would be well cared for and cherished for their entire lives.  And yet--do I even have to say it?  We hear terrible stories all too often about children dying because DCF wanted to keep giving their parents second chances when they should have been removed and never looked back.  It's so depressing, and it's just not fair--not to the children, not to the people who so desperately want them--not for anyone.

The Bible tells us that God disciplines us like a good father disciplines his children--not to hurt us, but to grow us, to make us more mature in our faith, and to help mold us into the people He needs us to be.  For the past two and a half years, I have been acutely aware that God is shaping me in painful ways into a person He can better use for His kingdom.  I have done my best to submit to His will, but we all know that's an extremely difficult thing to do.  I was aware that I was supposed to be growing in maturity, but instead I was struggling with the exact opposite.  I was whining to God on a daily basis that none of this is fair.  I am trying my best to do everything right, God!  Why, why, whyyyyyy is this happening to me???

The more I tried to just be more mature and get over it already, the more spiritually whiny I became.  Finally, the other night, I expressed my feelings to Phil in the most grating, babyishly whiny way imaginable.  I listed every single thing I could think of that wasn't fair, and it took me about twenty five minutes.  You should have seen his face!  He went from sympathetic to annoyed to shocked to sad and back around to sympathetic again.  Finally, at the end of my rant, I threw myself down onto my pillow and concluded with the ever-mature: "I don't get it!  God's so unfairrrrrrr!" 

And Phil responded, "Good thing."

Phil is not by any stretch of the imagination a man of few words--but he knows when to not elaborate and let me figure something out by myself.  I knew the answer to this in my head, but my heart hadn't been feeling it at all, and it needed to be reminded that I was feeling incredibly entitled to something I didn't actually deserve.  It's a sticky situation when you start feeling like God owes you something.  When it comes right down to it, what does any of us actually deserve?  All of us fall short of God's commands.  And when you break God's commandments, what do you deserve?  Seriously?  No matter how good we think we are, none of us can ever be good enough to have God owe us anything, whether it be success or good fortune or children or a spot in heaven.  If we all got what we deserved, we would be a lot worse off--in this life and all the way into eternity.

God is the ultimate judge, but it really is a "good thing" that He isn't entirely fair.  In fact, He sent His son Jesus to live a perfect life, to do everything right that we can't manage to do, and then to die horrifically as a sacrifice for us.  Jesus was completely innocent--He did not deserve this punishment at all.  It was the most unjust, unfair thing to ever happen in the history of the world.  But he did it all so that when we stand before God's throne someday, we followers of Christ can tell the judge of the universe that we messed up, that we fell short, and that we don't deserve to go to Heaven, but that we know we will anyway, because our debt has already been paid.  And that, folks, is the epitome of unfair.

So God, tonight I am grateful that life is not fair. 

  

Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53: 4-6