So yesterday afternoon, in the midst of lying on the sofa with a 2 year old and a 4 year old climbing all over me, and perhaps bouncing on my chest and belly, at one point I told the elder one, “Life isn’t fair.”  (I don’t remember why I said it, what exactly triggered it, but I certainly did say it.)

So this morning, the following hits the email inbox:

Good morning,

Thank you very much for the pearls of wisdom you shared with my 4 year old yesterday. This morning as he was leaving for school he turned to me and said, “Remember Mummy,” (insert my thoughts of him being sweet) “Love isn’t fair.” He then turned and walked down the stairs.

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

:).  Oh, and also :).  And :D.  Do I feel guilty for telling him that?  Does my smile look like I feel guilty?

But you know, he’s right.  He misquoted me, but it doesn’t matter, what he said is more true than what I said.  Love isn’t fair.

I always tell couples, in premarital counselling and in a wedding ceremony, marriage isn’t a 50-50 proposition, it is 100-100.  It’s not going to be fair, it won’t be even.  When you are ill and your wife is caring for you, it isn’t fair.  When she is pregnant and craving pickles, and there’s only one pickle in the house and you wanted it, love isn’t fair.  When she carries your child for 9 months, love isn’t fair.  When you have to go to work to pay for the things she bought, love isn’t fair.

As one man in our church jokes, “What’s mine is hers.  And what’s hers is hers.” 🙂 Yes, love isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair that God should love us.  It isn’t fair that Christ should die to save sinners.  It’s not fair, but it IS love.

Love isn’t fair because love doesn’t care about fair, it just loves.  Love doesn’t put me first and it doesn’t put fairness first, it puts the other person first.  The minute you start thinking about “fair” you start moving away from love.  If you think things aren’t fair for yourself, you aren’t thinking in the language of love.  If you think things aren’t fair for the other person, you aren’t receiving the gift of love on love’s terms.  Love doesn’t think of “fair,” it just loves.

But there’s an old meaning of the word “fair,” too.  It means beautiful or lovely.  And if we go back to that old meaning, then love is the fairest.  Yes, after all, love IS fair.  Hopefully he learns that lesson someday, too.

I Corinthians 13:13

And now abideth faith, hope, charity (love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity.