Solomon scratched his kingly head over the question that was put to us Sunday: Why aren’t comforts and crosses handed out in a more predictable fashion? Why isn’t life fair? Elizabeth Skoglund wrote the question another way, in her book Amma:
Belzec concentration camp was one of Hitler’s worst…No one went to Belzec to work, and there was no way of escape except through death… A little child who was going in to be gassed at Belzic saw the darkness of the room, and like an animal who is beaten and does not understand why, was heard to say: “It’s so dark, and I was being so good.”
None of us have faced such a horrific injustice as Belzec concentration camp, and yet haven’t we all felt the bewilderment of having done our best with the difficult circumstances we were given, of having behaved well under upheaval and hostile treatment… only to see the lights go out and a fresh horror begin? "It's so dark, and I was being so good."
Life isn’t fair. But I think we have to add something to the statement, something that is bracing, something that rekindles faith and hope. Life isn’t fair… yet. Jesus’ parables repeatedly assure us: the unrighteous will be separated from the righteous and each will go to their reward. Justice will be served… in the end.
In the meantime, we have an option. To allow our faith to become stunted and our spiritual strength to atrophy as we languish in doubt and self-pity… or to feed on God’s promises and encourage ourselves in the Lord and say with a Scottish Covenanter who was imprisoned on “The Bass,” a lone island off Scotland:
“I grow under the load.”
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