I’ve been doing some reading and training videos lately about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. When I listen to professionals talk about the brain damage and the lifetime challenges children face, my children, I cry. Its so hard to hear how much harder life is for them daily. It’s heartbreaking to wonder what pain the future holds for them. I can listen and read and feel so very defeated as this burden that has been placed on them, through no fault of their own, is so very heavy to carry their whole life long. There is very little I can do to make this burden easier for them. Its not fair. It wasn’t their choice, they are paying for the sins of their parents, and they will pay for the rest of their lives. Its simply not fair.

Also, the last few months have been filled with praying for and grieving the loss of multiple parents of young children. Its easy for me to think of these children left aching for the embrace of their parents and say “it’s not fair.” They were too young, the pain they leave behind too great, the hole too big.

The thing is, I don’t say things aren’t fair often. I’m not keeping score of every little “she got more blessing than me” moment. But these really big ones, these really hard things, these life changing for the worse things, I do whisper to Him, “its not fair.”

And He says “You’re right, it’s not.”

It wasn’t fair, that His son took my punishment. It wasn’t fair that He sent His son to bring us back to Him and we killed Him. It wasn’t fair, that He felt the pain, the weight of every type of evil man had ever done, the Creator who only made things good. It wasn’t fair that while He was suffering for me, while He was hanging on that cross, before He even decided to get up there, He knew I would betray Him. It wasn’t fair that He was dying for the very people pounding the nails into his hands, spewing insults, hurling the whip.

It isn’t fair, He whispers, when I hold these sweet babies who belong to another mother in my arms. It’s not fair, the house I’ve been blessed with, the husband, the family, the millions of good things He has given that others do not receive.

There’s a story in the bible we know well that also isn’t fair. The story of the prodigal son. (Lk 15:11-32) The son who demands his inheritance early, takes it and wastes it all. Everything his Father has worked for, sacrificed for, he throws it away. But what’s really not fair, is that he comes back and the Father throws him a party. He doesn’t lecture him, He doesn’t tell him He’s spent his inheritance and it’s all gone, you’ll have to go somewhere else because what’s left here is your brother’s. No, He gives Him more.

And the brother does say “it’s not fair.” He’s keeping score from where he’s sitting and it’s not looking right. And that’s when the Father says, you’re right, it’s not fair. “You’ve been with me the entire time. You’re brother was lost.”

He missed the score. He was looking at dollars when the true value was the relationship with the Father. He was there all along. “All I have is yours.” The father says to Him. And that’s really what isn’t fair: I have Jesus. I have this relationship with the Father, I have this peace that transcends all understanding. I have hope when I bury a body in the ground that I will see him again. I know when I cry over my children’s suffering that someday He will wipe away every tear and they will be burdened no longer by the pain the world has inflicted on them. But my brother doesn’t. My brothers and sisters, hundreds, thousands, millions of people in this world are laying people in the ground and they don’t believe they will see them again. They are suffering with illnesses and hardships and effects of trauma and disabilities and they do not have hope for a better tomorrow. They are suffering and dying in their sin because they do not know and understand that they could simply return to their Father. Maybe they don’t even know the way home.

What’s not fair, is that son never went searching for his lost brother. What’s not fair, is that he never even realized how good he had it, and so he kept it to himself. But you, brother, you’ve been lost and then found. You’ve been away from the Father and you know what it’s like to return. You know what you’ve been given, what you’ve had all along. Will you go seeking your brother? Will you show him the way back home? Will you share your inheritance? Because you’re right, it’s not fair, and you can do something about it. Let’s go get them.