A friend of mine from church got some pretty bad news last week - his 8 year old daughter has cancer. Obviously the news came to mom and dad as a total shock and set their world spinning. As I read their emails and updates on the daughter's care page, my heart was broken for this family and for this young girl. The pain of seeing what their daughter has to go through and not really knowing what the future holds is incredible.

Deep down inside, when we see things like cancer, we understand that this is not right; something is wrong with this picture. This is not the way it is supposed to be. Something is messed up.

These emotions spring from our built in understanding that this is not the way that God created the planet to work. He created it with beauty and perfection; not with the ugliness and ravages of imperfect cancer cells. He created it with life; not death and destruction. We don't have to "drum up" these emotions; we intuitively understand the gap between what is and what should be; the gap between the design of beautiful perfection and ugly sin.

The apostle Paul talks about these emotions in his letter to the church in Rome. He says this:

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....

Nature groans. We groan. We groan while we wait for this sin filled world to be bought back (redeemed) and restored to perfection; to a place where God himself in the incarnate Messiah will dwell Himself. Looking forward to that day, waiting for this world as our bodies to be made new again, give us hope and allows us to be delivered (saved) from the overwhelming pain that these types of situations bring.

Join me today praying for Sydnie and praying "maranatha" - even so Lord Jesus come; come and redeem this sin cursed fallen world and her body. Come and deliver her from the effects of sin - heal her body.