Redemption

As a child, I was somewhat obsessed with fairness.  I wanted a fair world, where good was always rewarded and bad was always punished.

It was all so simple to me back then: Everyone should get the same amount of dessert, have the same bedtime, and get to do the same fun things (spoken like a true second child).

Always following my complaints about some type of unfairness, I would inevitably hear my dad's calm voice echoing the oft-said phrase, "Life's not fair, Melissa."

Eventually my crusade got to the point that my dad, unable to take my declarations of, "It's not fair!" anymore, threatened to fine me $1 every single time I used that phrase.  For a child who was even more obsessed with money than fairness, it did the trick fairly quickly.

This past year, there have been days that have echoed with my cries of, "It's not fair!' and a Father's replies of, "Life's not fair, Melissa." (At least not yet.)

See, sometimes I expect a world where people find true love just because they're looking for it and people who "deserve" babies will be the ones who have them and honest people who work hard will get hired and only nice people will be promoted.  I subconsciously expect people who take care of themselves not to get sick and people who are still needed not to die.  I think people with faith should always have their prayers answered how they'd like and that miracles should come to all who believe.

Frankly, with subliminal expectations like that rolling around deep down inside of me, life will never cease to let me down--because a perfectly fair world is just not our Earthly reality.  No one EVER said it would be fair.  In fact, the more I learn about life, the more life confirms that no one is exempt from what feels terribly unfair.

Responsible, capable people who have been wanting children for years struggle with infertility.  Wonderful parents die from unexpected diseases or accidents, leaving young children behind.  Innocent children are abused.  People in under-developed countries die from hunger while their first world peers eat at buffets.  Diligent students fail finals.  Lonely people struggle to find companionship.  Planes go down in storms.

All of us who pass through life will learn something about the word "unfair."

In the last few months, I read the biographies/autobiographies of three exceptional, successful people who all had one thing in common--they experienced "unfair" firsthand, and recorded their accounts.

There was a famous neurosurgeon--who became the youngest director at Johns Hopkins, an Olympic athlete who was likely to be the first man to run a four minute mile, and a successful businessman/religious leader/father who was preparing to welcome another child into his family.

Despite this, all of them suffered.

They suffered from abandonment, imprisonment, and death.
They suffered from rage and hate and despair.
They suffered from bullying and loneliness and PTSD.
They suffered at the hands of circumstances beyond their control.
They suffered at the hands of other people who chose to hurt them.

And they suffered in ways that were completely and entirely unfair.

Ben Carson, one of the most respected pediatric neurosurgeons of all time--revered for his work separating craniopagus Siamese twins--was abandoned by his drug-dealing father as a young boy. His somewhat illiterate mother, who had only a third grade education, struggled to raise him and his brother against the economic and racial challenges of the day.  In addition to these challenges, Ben fought the demons of his terrible, uncontrollable temper that often led him to physical aggression.

Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who went on to be an inspirational speaker and run a camp for troubled youth, had been taken as a prisoner of war following the crashing of his plane during his WWII Air Force service.  During the course of the war, he went through four Japanese prison camps where he endured horrific abuse, suffering, and disease.  In addition to the battle of imprisonment, upon returning home he also fought the demons of alcoholism, PTSD nightmares, and the obsessive need for revenge.

http://www.army.mil/media/278989 

Chris Williams, a devoted father of four-soon-to-be five, had everything he knew taken from him in front of his eyes when, without warning, a drunk driver hit him head-on, killing his wife, his unborn baby, and two of their children.  In a matter of seconds, he was left a single father of two grieving children.  Courageously, he fought the demons of loneliness and anger that would try to engulf him.

As I reflected on these three stories--a Black neurosurgeon, an Italian runner, and a White businessman--I first thought that these were stories of survival.  

We celebrate and read about these men because they are survivors.

But, in one way or another, are we not all survivors?  What is surviving more than continuing to wake up each morning, breathe, and just keep living?
That is surviving.

The 2009 census concluded that 63% of Black children grow up in a home that does not have two parents. (http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-126.pdf) Yet most of them still make it to adulthood.  It appears that they are surviving single parenthood.

Records show that 67% of American prisoners of war held by the Japanese did not die in Japan, but eventually returned home.  They, indeed, survived the war.

And despite what people continue to say about dying of a broken heart, anyone who has lost a loved one (or several) knows that we, in fact, continue to wake up day after day and survive.

No, the stories of these men were not stories of survival, because there is nothing innately remarkable about surviving itself.
Rather, they were stories of redemption.

Each of these men--a Seventh Day Adventist, a Catholic turned born-again Christian, and an LDS Bishop--were, through faith in Jesus Christ, redeemed.  At a low point each of them heard or read the word of God, prayed, and exercised faith in the healing power of Jesus Christ.

And He healed them.
Not just made them feel better.
Not just made them forget for a moment.
He healed them.
He changed them.

Ben Carson recalls that his temper went away, never to return.  Louis Zamperini's nightmares stopped entirely--for the rest of his 97 year life.  Chris Williams felt an overpowering forgiveness for the boy who had taken his wife and children and was able to, in his words, "Let it go."

“Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” ^{(Helaman 5:12)}

I am not sure I have words to express how powerfully their messages of Christ and His power touched me.  I only know that these are real people who discovered that Christ "bind(s) up the brokenhearted, open(s) the prison to them that are bound…and give(s) unto them beauty for ashes."  (Isaiah 61:1, 3)

Without fail, each of these men had experiences that led him to know that he was known by God.  That  he was not alone.  That God remembered him.

Among the ashes of their once-standing hopes and dreams, He gave each of them back beauty.  They felt his promise:
"Yet will I not forget thee.  Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." (Isaiah 49:16)

As we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ this December, I was able to vicariously feel through their journeys what redemption is all about.
Jesus Christ redeems us not from our circumstances, but rather from ourselves. 
We can be redeemed from hurt and pain, anger and frustration, despair and addiction.
We can be redeemed from what hasn't been and what may never be.
We can be redeemed from the burden of our unmet expectations and the shattered pieces of our souls.
And as we are redeemed, we can literally be changed into new people.
#Because of Him.

"All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ."  (PMG pg 51)

A new year is beginning, and with it will come so many things beyond my control.
I am certain there will also be many things that won't be fair.
After all, life isn't fair.
And finally I understand.
Life wasn't meant to be fair.  It was meant to be redemptive.
Truly, "we are helpless without the Atonement of Jesus Christ."  (PMG pg 51)

Rather than looking to this year as another year of "survival," I instead want to write my own story of redemption, through my faith in Jesus Christ.  And that, at least, is something that (even in an unfair world) I can control.

Happy New Year!