tornadoes and birth pangs

     I was telling one of my students about the tornadoes in AL this morning - finals are coming up and keeping on top of the news is not on the top of their "to do" lists.  As I showed him some of the photos online, he looked and said two words, "birth pangs". 
   In the past, there have been times when people have said this to me - in particular I remember this occurance after Hurricane Katrina and after the tsunami that hit S. Asia that Christmas season.  Never did those words resonant and they actually instead created great dissonance within me.  How could a loving God allow these random acts of nature, of violence, to occur?  I still can't answer that question, but I could tell you a story involving a lightening bug that gave me some perspective...  another day perhaps for that...
   Today, the words "birth pangs" jolted me.  I was reminded once again that things are not as they were meant to be, that creation groans for the day when all will be made new.  Actually the word "groans" is all I could say in response to my student and in my head I was reminded that birth pangs bring forth new life and there is so much joy and celebration in the light of this that the pain and tears are no more.  Life as it was meant to be and as it will be is beyond my imagination.  It lies in the hands of a loving God whose vantage point is greater than mine, whose power and ability exceeds my own, and whose faithfulness and lovingkindness outlast all my rebellion and apathy.
   I can't bring myself to write or say or claim that the pain of these major disastors and my personal minor devastations will pale in comparison to what eternity holds.  Yet something within prompts me toward this hope.  I can't see it now.  I can't imagine that these things fit into renewal when they are so destructive.  I yearn for the liberation, the freedom, the glory, the adoption, the redemption that is and is to come.  I hope for what I do not see.

Romans 8

Present Suffering and Future Glory

 ¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
 ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
 ²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
 ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

As I wrote this, I remembered that I'd read one of my pastor's blogs about this same topic after the recent earthquake in Japan.  Thought I should cite him :)  http://www.dannold.com/?p=2920