There are three causes for suffering. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
The first is that it's your fault. You did something wrong, and now you're paying the consequences for your own stubbornness, stupidity, or what-have-you. This kind of suffering ideally gives us wisdom to avoid it again.
The second is that it's someone else's fault. Someone else exercised their right to choose in a way that has led to your suffering. This kind of suffering is often an opportunity to exercise compassion and empathy - to see why that person made the decision they did, to help them learn from it, to exercise patience with them as they learn, or in any one of a number of things.
The third is the one most overlooked. The third cause for suffering is that life and this world are imperfect. Every day, in more ways than we can imagine, things go wrong with life. Cells divide improperly. They attack things they shouldn't, and ignore things they should. Bacteria, mold, fungi, and a host of other things - animate and inanimate - are poisonous to us. Lightning strikes at just the wrong moment. Fires get out of control. It rains at the wrong time, or not at all. Tornadoes take homes and lives. Crops fail. The earth shakes. The list goes on.
No one is to blame for these things. Nobody can be blamed for them. They're just sheer, dumb luck. Somewhere along the line, everything went perfectly wrong, and in a terrible turn of events, you happened to be right there when whatever shouldn't have happened in an ideal world went right ahead and happened to happen to unlucky you.
It's this third category I've been thinking most about, and for a very simple reason: I hurt. A lot. All over. And some days I can't really walk. The cause? Autoimmune disease, which I was recently diagnosed with. And to add insult to injury, the current treatment has only made my already-existing depression worse.
So in this moment's scenario, "unlucky you" happens to be me, and in addition to already feeling physically bad, I feel emotionally bad for no good reason. Whine, whine, whine.
With all this in mind, I've come to a conclusion that is not nearly as pessimistic as it sounds: the quicker you understand that life isn't fair, the quicker you'll be happy.
I am not saying to be content with the way things are, never challenge yourself or the status quo, or to simply give up. Bear with me.
At a very basic level, fairness means two things: every mistake has a price that must be paid, and every interaction is mutually beneficial (a.k.a. everyone gets what they want). More on this later.
In a fair world, when it comes to suffering, if you've done something wrong, you deserve it. That's the price you pay for your mistake. If you happen to not suffer for your mistake, either it simply hasn't arrived yet, or someone else is doing it for you because you passed the buck. But if life is truly fair, you can't just pass the pain along to anyone, because that's obviously not fair.
In a fair world, if you're suffering for someone else's mistakes, it's because you willingly choose to do so, either in their place or to take a part of their suffering. There's nothing fair about multiple people paying the same price for a single thing. Either the cost is divided or it's not; price doesn't get multiplied as it's divided.
In a fair world, there is no imperfection, because even though on a grand scale tragedy technically is just as blind as justice, it isn't in response to any mistake, and it isn't mutually beneficial. The very nature of the word arbitrary requires that the arbiter be executing a judgement call of some sort, and since judgement entails guilt and innocence, and hence punishment, we find ourselves looking at cause one, and here we're just begging the question. Even in the case where someone truly believes they deserve to suffer, they must be carrying someone else's load, because there's nowhere else it could come from - in a fair world, any and all suffering is human-caused and willingly shared.
So no, life isn't fair.
That is, until God steps in and offers to make it fair.
The first thing to understand is that God will only step in if we are willing participants. It's only fair.
The next thing to understand is that somewhere out there, if you believe God, He has a son who said, in essence, "I'm willing to take all the suffering anyone has - ever," and for a whole host of reasons that I'm not going into right now, God made it so that son could do just that, and in English, we call that act the 'Atonement' - the at-one-ment of humanity and deity.
This Atonement doesn't just cover 'sin' - the breaking of some cosmic law - but also pain, sickness, sadness, death and a whole host of other things.
Not just the sorrow we feel at the death of another, but death itself - death is inevitable for each of us, but every bit as arbitrary as other forms of suffering. It has no purpose; it simply is, and it usually happens to us very much unwillingly. And so, death must go.
Not just the pain of enduring our own just punishment, but the pain of enduring an unjust one. The pain of a broken bone; a broken heart; a broken mind. A broken life. The offer is to take it.
The pain of watching a loved one sink into addiction. The pain of being falsely accused. Of betrayal. Of a hundred thousand million other things. The offer stands.
Somehow, the Atonement offers the promise of making it all right. What is lost will be found. What is dead will rise. What was broken will be made whole.
I don't claim to even begin to understand how it's all supposed to work. At times it makes no sense, or not work at all. And especially during times of suffering, it's easy to feel that relief can't, or won't, come. And so God asks us to be patient with Him.
I can't claim to have an answer to when, either. Relief isn't always immediate. And yet God asks us to trust Him.
Trust doesn't come easy to me, for a number of reasons. But trust is a choice, and trust is one of the most important elements of faith. Faith doesn't simply "happen" to us. We choose it. Without that conscious choice on our part, it can't be fair, because we can't be a willing participant. Either we're passively participating, or we're outright unwilling.
Sometimes, even when we choose to believe, the pain still doesn't go away when we want it to. Often, these moments are to show us what we're really capable of or teach us how to bear the burdens of another. While paradoxical, it's important to remember that this is called an Atonement - the implied subtext being that we in some small way come to be part of God, God's work, and who God is - in short, to make us like Him. If His work involves the bearing of our burdens, it makes no sense to expect to not bear burdens by joining in that work.
Pain will be a part of the journey, but it will pass. Life isn't fair, but God is. Suffering will still come, but relief will come as well. Things will make sense, and all will be made right - somehow, somewhere, someday.
And so I sit here, tired, exhausted, and still very much in pain, but with some semblance of an answer to questions I didn't even realize I had three hours ago when I started writing this.
And if you're reading this, choose to believe. Press on. If you are struggling along your journey, remember your choice to believe, and choose it again. This struggle will end. If you are lost, choose to believe. You are not alone; you have a guide. As you pass through the fires, choose to believe. You can make it through this. Don't trust me on this; trust Him.
