Reborn

“When a baby is inside, still unborn, it knows there’s something out there, but it’s not quite sure what. It hears this voice,” Mom said. We were looking at pictures of a newly born baby and all the sweet love her family was showering on her. “And similarly, we also hear a voice. We know something greater is to come, but we don’t know completely what it will be,” she continued.

1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (KJV)

1 John 3:2 “Dear friends, now are we children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He is.” (NIV)

It got me thinking what being “born again” really means. In a way, we’re born again positionally, but boy, practically, it will be a whole different matter. In the same way, a baby is given life (he or she is already conceived), but hasn’t yet met those givers of life. I’ve always thought people should count those extra nine months in their age. After all, babies have been living ever since that beginning moment. And so have we. Celebrate life.

London

I've been crying and crying and decided I have to get up and write. I have to write about the atrocity that was commited across the world in London. To really even understand what has happened, I must get my thoughts out and organize them.

It's absolutely no different for these horrid beasts to kill a Londoner than for them to kill someone in your hometown. And it's easy to read that and think, "Of course, I know that." But do we... do we really? I mean, do we really believe that? Do we think of our neighbor really as a British woman on a subway, or only someone that is on our same continent or street? I have to confess, until just this year, I don't think I thought that way. Maybe I still don't completely, but I do moreso, I know that for sure. I'm not sure specifically why I feel so strongly hurt by this, but I think it's partially the ridiculously simple realization that washed over me when I went to Europe. This realization was simply that people are people wherever you go. The man at the bus stop in your hometown is no different than the man washing windows in a faraway city. Pavement here and pavement there mean the exact same thing--you walk and drive on them, whether you speak French or Farsi. And most particularly, the Bible's message is just as applicable to the human heart anywhere you live. A human is a human wherever you go--and that human deals with the exact same bitterness, joy, and saving grace, that I do. My neighbor is my neighbor, whether they live in Marysville or Madrid. Faraway places immediately became so much closer. And I think that's why it hurts so much. Also, knowing how their country feels from our own experience nearly 4 years ago, I think that's become part of our own soul as a nation now.

Anyway, I guess a "point of application" here for me is not just, "Oh, I know how they feel." But it's more that if a person's location doesn't change them, what does? It's not whether they are born Iraqi, Scottish, Ethiopian, or American. It's whether they have the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Do they know him? He is the only One who can bring hope in pain or change their lives at all. And though there may not be an end to terror here on earth, there is something that can bring hope even in tragedy. And I need to share that Hope.