Many of us will sometimes be over-whelmed by sickness and suffering in our lives and when we are feeling deep in despair we may well ask the question, "Is God fair."

Some people seem to sail through life without sickness, redundancy, or any of the problems we are experiencing and it just doesn't seem fair. It wasn't very fair for the following people and their families:-

Emma was widowed at the age of twenty-six and left to raise three small children, when her husband, a police officer was shot and killed during a bank robbery. John's beloved sister was drowned in a tsunami disaster, whilst on a holiday of a lifetime with her friends. Tom was fired and found himself unemployed for years, when his company went bankrupt. George contacted Parkinson's disease when he was only thirty and finished up in a wheelchair.

I'm sure we can all recall similar events in our own communities, which can create despair and sometimes resentment, if you happen to be the family affected by the unfairness of it all.

For some reason we all tend to believe that life is fair, because we have been brainwashed into thinking that everything is so easy. If we have a pain then we take a pill and it goes away. If we need some cash, we take our credit card to the hole in the wall and obtain money. If we have no money, then we take out a bank loan. If we have no time to prepare a meal, then we stick a frozen one in the microwave - yes life is so easy isn't it?

When we develop a special relationship with God, then this must include the harsh realities of life. God does not owe us any special favours, just because we try to be one of his disciples. We must learn to trust him in spite of all the unfairness in our lives, we cannot say, "I'll follow God only if he treats me well. Always remember, God does not will human tragedy, but he is always with us in our suffering.