Life is not fair. That is for certain for everyone and everything at some point.
Life isn’t fair because we live in a complex and chaotic world that most of the time is unpredictable. With this randomness of our complex system there is one guarantee that at some point in your life you will feel like life isn’t fair and you would be correct. Even though there are many things we can do to stack the odds in our favor, at the end of the day the amount of control we have over outcomes in this life is limited.
This reminds me of the Sermon on the Mound in Matthew 5:45, when Jesus says this about God the Father, “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” This shows me that regardless of a person’s disposition toward God, God gives sunshine and rain to us all in equal portions. He makes no distinction between the evil and the righteous in this instance. He simply gives equally to us all. To some this may not seem fair but it is a fact.
Growing up I was never thrilled about the rain. Maybe this stemmed back to a time when I was only six years old and we were staying with my grandparents while we built our home in the Pierce area. My brothers and I had to ride the school bus from Tiger Mountain to Checotah schools every day. We had to get up early and we got home late because we were literally the first stop in the morning and last stop in the evening at the foot of the mountain.
Clyde Lee was our bus driver then and he didn’t ever go up the winding little road to my grandparent’s home because it was so narrow. So on fair and sunny days we would walk the half mile to the stop, but on rainy days my parents or grandparents would drive us there and wait for the bus or be there to pick us up.
However, on this one particular day when it was raining cats and dogs, for some reason no one was there to pick us up at the end of the route. Clyde waited for several minutes but still no one came. That’s when he decided that he couldn’t just put us out in the pouring rain to walk home so he barreled that big old’ bus through that narrow, winding road nearly getting stuck several times as we held on for dear life. When he came to our gate he couldn’t go any farther so he reluctantly let us out and told us to run home which my brothers did.
Unfortunately, I tried to run but because our country roads were nothing but muck and mire I stepped down into a big puddle and my feet sunk into the mud. The more I tried to wiggle my feet free, the deeper I went down. May I remind you that it’s still pouring rain and my brothers are nowhere in sight because at the gate you still had to go up and over the hill to get to my grandparent’s home. Yes, it was truly like the song “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go…”
Anyways, I am standing there up to my knees in water, bawling my eyes out when my grandma and brothers come back looking for me. Grandma Eloise gets to the edge of the huge puddle and tells me to come on as she stretches out her arms to reach for me. I’m still crying and trying to tell her I can’t – I’m stuck! As my brothers are laughing at the situation, my poor grandma climbs into the puddle with me and literally pulls me out of my shoes to get me free. If I remember right we left the shoes. Needless to say I got a hot bath when we got home and my brothers got busted for leaving their little sister behind in the pouring rain. So now I guess that’s why I’m typically not a fan of rainy days unless I’m staying in.
I said all that to say this, sometimes life is not fair. Sometimes problems pour upon our heads and we literally get stuck in the muck and the mire. Sometimes bad things happen to good people like my sweet friend’s daughter who lost her life this past week and my other two friends who lost their spouses to cancer this week and last. We cannot begin to understand the why? We cannot predict when it will rain. We only know for certain that it rains on us all at some point in our lives.
Perhaps we look at the rain wrong. Instead of looking at it as the hard times, maybe we should recognize it as the complex times – the times when there’s something to learn from the rain. That each day we have is a gift. That the rain may be harsh at times but it also washes the soul and replenishes the soil so everything keeps growing.
It is true; life is not fair at times, but there are sunny days ahead. There is also more rain to come and hopefully we will endure it and keep growing in His grace and love. During this rainy season in your lives, my friends, my prayers are with you all.
