Life Isn’t Fair
I want to roll my eyes every time words come out of my mouth that sound exactly like one of my parents.
This time I sound like my Dad when my sister and I would complain about something not being “fair.” “Life’s not fair,” he would say, “Get over it.”
Really Dad?
Well, I still haven’t gotten “over it.” Cause you know what? Life ISN’T fair. In fact, sometimes it’s straight up bullshit. (Yup, Dad, I swore). There is no “equal playing field” that individuals are born into. We are born into poverty or wealth, we are born into kindness or abuse, we are born into slavery or freedom through no choice or action of our own. No one does anything before birth to deserve pain or oppression or being “dealt a crappy set of cards.” And “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps” as some of you might say, assumes everyone is given the same kind of boots at birth, or boots at all.
I could wax theological and philosophical about the whys and the wherefores but the truth remains:
We do not live in a world that is fair. We cannot change that.
Kind people will get cancer. Innocent children will be neglected. Corruption will exist among the wealthy.
Recently I joined a Facebook support group for women struggling with fertility issues. It has been both a place of great support and a place of great confusion. Many of us express emotional turmoil – the yearning to have a child, the hope that medical intervention will help, the disappointment of failure, the grief of loss. And many times we express the deepest part of our hearts, the part that we are a little embarrassed to admit to, the part that is angry. The part that is jealous. Because really wouldn’t we make the best parents – those of us who want it so desperately? Why does the irresponsible teen or drug addicted family member get pregnant and we cannot? Why do they get what I deserve? Where is the fairness? Where is the justice?
Lord have mercy – even when I “type it out loud” I feel bad for saying it. Truth it is, nonetheless. The more I expose my inner darkness to the light of day, the more room I leave inside of me to emit light myself. Expose, expose – up and out.
Verbal exposure usually brings me to a place of contemplation and, ultimately, humility. So here I am – musing over the definitions and differences and reasons between things like fairness and justice.
When I was little, fairness was about me getting mine – getting what I believed I deserved, getting as much as anyone else. And honestly, as an adult I’m not sure I’ve changed all that much when it comes down to it. Fairness is actually a rather self-referenced concept. Focusing on fairness makes me angry at God which is a very dangerous position to be in.
Justice, however, is a higher concept. It is a Holy invention. Justice is about God’s judgement. A God who, unlike me, doles out mercy and grace just as equally. Focusing on justice sets my sights on holy things – it unites me with God, making me more like Him. Focusing on justice brings God’s work to earth and I get the privilege to love those who may not have felt that ever before.
Some children are born into circumstances that bring suffering. I do not believe anyone was “meant” for that kind of life. Rather, I believe that each child is meant as a gift to the parent, as a call to repentance and light, as a means of God’s mercy and grace. Whatever the parent’s circumstance or temperament might be, that child is designed to show them the face of God. Parents do not always choose to see this, and instead, make waste of what was meant to be beloved.
Every parent will answer to God for the decisions made in parenting. Justice requires us to answer for our choices – fairness does not. Justice answers to the One who made us, fairness only to ourselves.
I will answer to the Lord for my choices – even this one, in this moment, inasmuch as I do not understand and as much as I do, I am responsible for my heart.
Which brings me to this –
Maybe a more accurate, however harsher statement from my Dad, would be “Life isn’t fair. Get over yourself.”
I suspect I will be working on that for the rest of my life.