Latter-day Saint Life

Life Isn't Fair (but Not in the Way You Think)

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After a young mother went through two surgeries for a brain tumor, she felt dejected, overwhelmed. Then, suddenly her perspective changed as she realized life wasn't fair, but not in the way she had supposed. This beautiful story reminds me of the words of King Benjamin:

"I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants" (Mosiah 2:21).

As I sat alone in the hospital waiting for my second surgery, I had reached the threshold of what I could possibly bear. I wept. I cried more than I think I have ever cried before and fell into a fog of despair. Up to this point I felt I had taken my trial with a faithful heart, but now I had finally broken. I started to feel sorry for myself and felt that my situation was entirely unfair. It is this moment that has taught me a number of sacred lessons about the Atonement that are ingrained in my heart, lessons that I'm sure will continue and deepen throughout my life.

That feeling of life being unfair has been a lesson that I needed to understand. In Preach My Gospel we read that, “All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” The feelings of despair and unfairness that I had lying in that hospital bed have been swallowed up in the physical, mental, and emotional healing power of the Atonement of Christ. Both of my surgeries were successful. In the last five years, the promise I received through a priesthood blessing was fulfilled and it is almost as though the surgery and tumor had never happened.

Elder Dale G. Renlund said, 

“If life were truly fair, you and I would never be resurrected; you and I would never be able to stand clean before God. In this respect, I am grateful that life is not fair....through God’s compassion, kindness, and love, we will all receive more than we deserve, more than we can ever earn, and more than we can ever hope for. We are promised that 'God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Lead image from Aggieland Mormons.
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