I know some people use all the awful things in the world as proof that a loving God doesn't exist, but, for me, it just shows how fallen the world really is. It's simply a really crappy place sometimes.

In Tsoroja, the evidence shows up in the form of dead babies... I am really tired of dead babies. Evelyn, Diana, the nameless one, and, tonight, baby Jenny. Dan said tonight that I would get used to it eventually. I know he didn't mean that it would stop affecting me - if it ever does, it's time to leave - just that it is so common here that eventually I will
just stop being so surprised by it. But I really hope that I don't ever get used to it. I hope that I remain so soft and expectant of grace that the brokenness of the world always surprises me. I want to cling so tightly to hope, that each time I witness a tiny life snuffed out by mankind's fallen world, I am shocked and devastated.

Sometimes, though, it really sucks. I feel my heart hardening in discouragement, and I wonder is there really anything that I can do that makes a difference. Is there any way to show grace in brokenness and offer mercy and hope to despair? And then I remember Jonny, a fat little 3 year old that should have died of malnourishment years ago. And Clever, a healthy nine month old that would have died before he was a month old if it weren't for a nebulizer. And Davin, a premature baby who simply should not have made it. And many more whom I won't ever realize what would have happened if they hadn't had access to medical care, inadequate though it may be.

The Bible says that God holds the world together and that in Him we live, breathe, and have our being. That's why I think that death is really the natural state of things; it is life that is the exception.

Jonny, Clever, Davin and all the others are living evidence of grace and hope. God's mercy sustains their lives as it sustains the world until all is redeemed and restored into what it was intended to be. The question I face is where will I focus? Will I stare at brokenness and pain or will I keep my eyes on grace? Will my focus be on the fallen world or will I fix my eyes on Jesus, the life giver and life sustainer?