The question of Fairness....

Every once in a while I go down the path of thinking that this really "isn't fair". I usually end up on this path after someone says something to me that sets me off or I find myself beginning to compare myself to others. Most recently, it has grown out of my experience and interactions with the people I have reconnected with through my high school twenty year reunion website. My reaction to many of them is that I can't believe all that they have done (immoral, etc) and many of them have an "exterior" that says they are successful, happy, etc. It's been hard to be who I am in that group. I tend to compare myself and think things should have turned out better. I wonder what they are thinking about me....and the God that I serve....

Yet, the question of fairness isn't a good road to go down. I picked up a book tonight that I read early in my grief journey. It is written by Jerry Sittser who lost his mother, wife and daughter in a car accident involving a drunk driver. He writes about fairness versus grace and here is what he has to say;

"....God spare us a life of fairness! To live in a world with grace is better by far than to live in a world of absolute fairness. A fair world may make life nice for us, but only as nice as we are. We may get what we deserve, but I wonder how much that is and whether or not we would really be satisfied. A world with grace will give us more than we deserve. It will give us life, even in our suffering.....I dread experiencing undeserved pain, but it is worth it to me if I can also experience undeserved grace."

Fairness or grace? It has to be grace for me. The title of my blog suggests I have some sort of an awareness of the importance of grace in my life...and the "evidence of grace" in my life far outweighs the unfairness factor.....

I've got to quit going down this path where I pout about the fairness of losing Brian......it leads to nowhere....