This Fallen World

Sometimes I feel like I have been lied to. Throughout all my years of learning there was always logical outcomes. My entire education seems based on being able to predict the outcome given the input. Science class was that way - hypothesis, experiment, theory, law. Math was full of proof and algorithm. The world was predictable, at least the world of textbooks.

But this world is fallen and therefore is apparently not prone to arranging itself in order. Instead, the opposite happens. I spent my pregnancy carefully monitoring my diet and exercise and yet, in the last week, Lia died.

Today I am watching a friend face this fallen world. She has breast cancer. It seems she has done everything right, eating healthy and exercising but again, she faces the opposite of the expected.

Life is not a textbook and things don't happen according to plan. So where is the hope? If I can't depend on this world to behave as I think it ought, then what hope do I have? Am I simply at the whim of happenstance?

Thankfully no. For even though this fallen world does not act according to how we think it should, it still is under the authority of God. At times, God feels as unpredictable as the trials I face, but that's okay with me. I don't want a God who is bound by codes of conduct. I don't want a God whose choices to work in my life must be weighed by logic and exhibit reasonable predictability. His law is love and His love knows no limits or bounds. He can work miracles or simply just make the world work. As crazy, painful, and frustrating as life on this fallen world can be, God is never caught off guard, never flustered, never frustrated. Instead, he is just the opposite always in control and always patient.

So am I still frustrated with this fallen world? Yes. Am I still angry that babies die and mommies get cancer? Yes. Do I still love God? Absolutely yes. More now than ever.