I am a mom of four fabulous kids. I love them. Oddly, we consider it a rather amazing thing that we have four kids, since we had some trouble getting pregnant, then some trouble maintaining pregnancy, and a family history of infertility and early menopause and all that. Anyway, suffice it to say that amazingly, we have four kids. If we lived in an earlier time, my husband might have one kid, maybe, assuming I'd lived (which was unlikely but that's a separate story). But he probably would have lost me in that first delivery from various complications, and that one kid would probably have died if not at birth, by now due to other health issues and complications which she has now encountered. If she hadn't done me in, her brother might have had a go at it, and I surely would have died (or the baby, or both of us) for the third. No chance at our little surprise fourth. None. Anyway....
That third child, more than all the others, protests about the fairness of life. NOTHING is fair according to her. She is always comparing and contrasting and examining and determining that she has been unjustly treated. She didn't get enough X, or have enough Y, or Z did something and she can't (or Z shouldn't have) and so on and so forth. If you have children, you know what I'm talking about. Oh my, I sometimes want to scream. Why? Because frankly NOTHING in life is fair, and as we learned in the Princess Bride, it never has been and it never will be.
What's my point? Well, this article, entitled When it's not fair, about says it all. Please read it and then come back....
What I want my kids to learn about fairness is that it's not really very important. Justice is good. But fair is actually not. We don't just want fair, we want more than fair. And then someone else feels like it wasn't fair. So it comes down to what she said in her article, "But lately I’ve considered that I’m looking at things the wrong way. It
may not be that life’s so much about what’s fair, as it is about this: Everybody has something different to learn."
My kids - and I - need to focus more on that. What we "deserve" is fair and just. Getting more than that is a gift. Grace is a gift. Faith is a gift. Love is a gift. My kids are a gift. I didn't deserve them, or God's grace, or anyone's love etc. I love my kids. And sometimes I want to give one a special something. Or I think one will really enjoy something that frankly wouldn't mean much to another child. I don't want to leave another one out - I just want to treat one or bless one or some such thing. That doesn't seem "fair", but is a gift to that one. And we all have so much to learn about gifts and fairness and love and grace. It is amazing.
And when it all comes crashing down (whatever it might be), it may not seem fair. But it can truly be good. You see, we're not in it alone. Whether the circumstances are as we'd wish or not, whether we get what we want or not, whether we have the "same" as another and things are "fair" or not, God is still God. He is good. And He uses WHATEVER he chooses to teach us, to love us, to mold us, and frankly to bless us. I think we can all say that we've learned some of life's most valuable lessons when things aren't "fair". In looking back, so much of that has been so good for me. I wouldn't trade those lessons in for fairness. I'm glad to have learned them. And I see God being who He is through it all - a good and loving and trustworthy God, who even though we've messed up so many times, still looks and declares his work "good" and keeps on making us into His likeness if we believe in Him. And He's not done yet. That too is good. Thanks for not leaving it all a mess Lord with me wallowing in it forever.
(Now to try to explain this to my kids... it's just not fair!)
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