How do I put into words what my heart and mind are yearning to express? Life is certainly different for all of us. Some people appear to have it all together and life for them seems to just happen, just ‘living the dream’. Then for others it seems ‘it never rains but it pours’. It’s one thing after another and life could be so difficult and unfair at times. Sometimes I wish we all could experience a little down time. A time when we could just relax a little, enjoy life a little without being constantly tormented by worry, uncertainty and hard times.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone a life of ease. A life that is absent of difficulty or effort. But sometimes I wonder why some people have to go through so much and others seem to escape the hardships of life. But the reality is that sometime throughout life we all have to face circumstances, heartache and hardships. No one is exempt, sometimes it just seems that way. Take for instance that mother who is so desperately fighting cancer and trying to convince herself that she can’t let this monster take her life; her kids are depending on her. But yet still in the end, she loses her battle and can fight no more. Where’s the fairness in that? Tell that to the husband who comes home and finds a note on the table from his wife of twenty years, that she’s left for greener pastures. The loss, betrayal, broken promises that drowns his spirit is just too overwhelming; where’s the fairness in that? Then tell that to the parents who had to lay their only son to rest, after a death by suicide. Where’s the fairness in that? There’s no doubt about it, life can be tough. But we cannot be consumed by it or life would become a mere existence and not a life at all.
The last several years have been anything but easy for us. The challenges, uncertainties, sickness, death, struggles; have nearly left us suffocated but we are still here, still fighting to survive. Never in a million years would I have thought life would be what it is today. There are days when we just have to say, life is so unfair, so cruel and times when we have to wonder, ‘where is God’? I don’t think we would be human if we didn’t feel days of defeat and hopelessness. I am not comparing our lives to anyone else’s, nor am I saying that our situation is worse then someone else’s. But no matter what the pain, what the hurt, that we are experiencing; it’s just as real to us as what others are enduring. There is no measuring scale for life’s pain, no matter what it might be.
It was just today I had a wonderful telephone conversation with my brother and I shared some of the things that we were dealing with in our own lives. And he asked the question, “How do you do it?” I could find no other answer other then, there has to be a God, even on days when my faith is small, even on days when I have to question God and wonder where is the fairness in all of this. I still have to believe that tomorrow is going to be better; that was my Dad’s way of looking at rough times, that God will ‘provide a way of escape’. That things will get better. His phone call was at a time when I really needed to talk to someone, the week was filled with so much discouragement. I shared with him how just yesterday I was sitting at the table having supper, I was just sitting there watching Lauren eating her’s. She was feeling around her Minnie Mouse plate with her tiny fingers, searching for her food. My heart skipped a beat as I realized she wasn’t seeing with her eyes but her hands. Her severe vision impairment, which I prefer to call it, was more then I could bare. Please tell me where the fairness is in that!? But on ‘good days’ I believe that God is in control, He knows best, even in my wavering unbelief.
I want to encourage those today who have walked down life’s ‘unfair’ path and have questioned God. Don’t feel guilty, God understands your hurt, your pain and your questions. Believe, even when you feel you have nothing left, when you feel you have hit rock bottom, He’s there. Hope, when hope seems that it’s nowhere to be found, it’s still there. You can find it! It’s what keeps us moving forward.