Infuriating Unfairness

Infuriating unfairness.  I remember the first time I experienced the feeling of truly infuriating unfairness.  I was reading a book titled "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". It's about a 9 year old Black girl living in Mississippi during the Great Depression. As Cassie comes to learn of and experience the racial prejudice and injustice of that time and place, she is first confused, then angry, then saddened. I too became angry at the immense unfairness caused by the actions of many of the characters. More so because they represented real events, that happened to real people. 

I was thinking about this because I watched a movie over the weekend that, although fictional and not based on true events like Cassie's situation, also brought a sense of infuriating unfairness. The movie tells the story of a small minority who seek one thing: independence. The right to govern themselves and live how they want to live. To have a home. They fight for this right, again and again, and every time they seem to be getting close, everything crashes down around them. The city is destroyed and rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt. The people give their lives, everything they have, to win their freedom.

The leader of the opposing army is merciless, tyrannical and manipulative. He cannot allow anyone else to have power, of any kind. He needs it all for himself.  He tears apart friendships, promotes violence, and eventually, destroys the entire city so completely that it can never be rebuilt. The two main characters, who had once been best friends and driven apart by perceived mutual betrayal, finally realize that it is the leader of the other army that has lied to them, manipulated them and driven a wedge in their friendship. The reconcile and stand with the few remaining citizens and can only watch as their home, their city, everything they had built and fought for, is destroyed.  As they sang their anthem together one last time, I cried, torn by the unfairness of it all.  

But why? Why was I so affected by this story? It's not real. It's not even "inspired by a true story". I thought about it a lot over the weekend. And I realized, it's because it is true. There are people who fight for the right to be independent. For the right to govern themselves how they see fit. For the right to have a home, to have friends, to live peacefully. Through all ages of time and all across the word these people have existed. It is infuriatingly unfair they are continually beaten, denied, driven out and killed. Infuriatingly unfair. My soul mourns for them.

So today when we talked in Relief Society about Elder Renlund's talk "Infuriating Unfairness", and the teacher asked us to write down things that were infuriatingly unfair in our lives, these are the people I thought of. The oppressed. The downtrodden, the refugee. I thought of those who live with chronic illness, those who lose loved one, who die. 

I have experienced these things in my life, but my personal experiences did not seem unfair. I tried to think why. Someone touched on it, and I realized it's because I have a level of understanding that all things will be consecrated for my good. In every situation I thought of in my own life that could be unfair, I thought of how God had turned it to good, to an opportunity. I feel and dwell the unfairness of other people's lives far more than my own. I know that sometime, somehow, all will be made right. But it tears my heart to see others suffer.

We then discussed remedies for the infuriating unfairness in our lives. What is your remedy to the infuriating unfairness in your life? Mine is to find someone to serve. To seek to love, understand and help another. As I help others work through the unfairness in their life, the answers to my own problems become clear. Not because we have the same problems or because mine are nothing compared to theirs, but because when I immerse myself in the spirit of love and compassion, the Holy Ghost has place to work in me and show me what I can do. Others have different remedies. But they all come back to one basic principle: Jesus Christ and the Atonement He performed.

He knows what it's like to be friendless. He knows what it's like to be homeless. He knows what it's like to be hunted, betrayed and imprisoned. He knows all things. No one understands our suffering like he understands our suffering. All that is unfair in this world is made right through the Atonement of Christ. He descended below all things, and has risen above all things.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/25renlund?lang=eng