Agony

All alone, this word brings gut reaction. We think through our lives and name times we have experienced it. We know friends who are experiencing it.

Our world is in agony. Our world needs redemption; for God's Kingdom to come in the here and now.

Sunday we learned that our friends gave birth to a son, three months premature.  His tiny body is suddenly having to work in ways it's not even developed for yet.

And so the parents wait. They love him knowing risk.

We love, but we love with open hands. Our love does not equal possession, ownership, or control. We want it to. We want to cling to those we love, and in some way prolong our sense of security.

But God is not safe. Our trust in Him does not give us the "get out of agony free" card. Instead it promises us a life where we will experience agony. And this is where we can live God's Kingdom and walk through the agony with each other.

God IS good. His goodness is, at this point for me, quite amorphic. I see His goodness, but I find myself most often unable to articulate it.

I find it after the agony. A quiet sense that He is Lord God Almighty.

But I don't understand His ways at all.