we are alive in the Mystery.

God hurts for Haiti. He hurts for the people of that broken country more than all the hurt the entire human population could ever express. Do i know all the reasons why He allowed this catastrophe to happen? No, how could i? One thing i do know is that He is able to do exceedingly beyond all we could ask or imagine. The same Power that rescued my heart from darkness can surely rescue that nation from despair. And His Love still reigns, even in the midst of tragedy. He can turn a nation dedicated to darkness into a nation filled with that very Love.

During this whole time of me trying to reconcile the images i see of the earthquake and it's devastation of people God created with that very God, Isaiah 30 has been so pivotal in helping me grasp the perfect Love of God. Israel had turned away from God much in the same way Haiti has historically, and God had dealt with their sin. Yet He never once gave up on them. These verses offer an astounding picture of justice, of forgiveness, and of a Savior who has paid the ultimate price to offer both.

Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
"Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,

this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern."

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Isaiah 30:12-26