I believe I was in high school. A freshman perhaps, and as you might recall from a previous
entry, young and shy. My
volleyball team was traveling back in that all too familiar yellow box of a bus
with torn plastic seats and dangling seatbelts. We were a decent team, but pretty sure we lost that game, so
the pack of girls this school bus carried didn’t hold with them the excitement
of victory. The team’s juniors and
seniors sat, per usual, at the back of the bus, an occasional squeal of teenage conversation projecting from their seats.
I kept to myself somewhere in the middle of this hollowed out twinkie, gazing
into the evening’s darkness, knees propped up on the seat in front of me, ready
to be home, sleeping soundly on the unrest of defeat. I don’t recall the loss bothering me too much. More than likely I was thinking about
homework or some boy. Though one
thought in particular I can remember as clearly as Monday night’s sky. Illuminating ever so vividly was a
circular shape of beaming red. The
moon? Yes, the moon! In seconds my heart fluttered as I
recollected what I had heard in Sunday School teachings and family dinner
conversations… that the moon would turn to red at His coming. This was it! Jesus was coming!!
Until, an instantaneous moment later, I realized that this vision of a
moon was instead the reflection of a red light from inside my moving caravan. Though a triumphal entry was only
imminent for a moment, I can still recall the excitement of being heaven bound. The home that us volleyball girls were
routinely traveling to just didn’t cut it. I wanted to go HOME.
Though for that night, it seemed Cambridge, New York would have to make
do.
Going home is still precious to me. The love that my family so evidently
gives has become a safe haven, an oasis, even amidst the difficulties that our
family has faced. We have faced
them all together, and for that, home will always be a place of comfort and
refuge. Even so, each moment of
time I am given still finds a way to remind me of a deeper yearning. The hope of my existence
lies beyond the temporary reality of this world. Death will otherwise swallow us whole, and all that we’ve gained will
be left to another so that they may struggle in its insecurity. As Paul stated in a letter he wrote to the first century
Corinthians, “If only for this life we have hope in [Jesus], we are to be
pitied more than all men.” The
future looks grim for all of us, those of faith and those without, if all that
is to be lived is this life alone.
Though Paul immediately continued in his writing, stating, “But [Jesus]
has indeed been raised from the dead!” Therein lies my hope.
It sounds pretty crazy, I know. Not sure that it sounds crazier than the world being made out
of nothing or life amounting to no more than death. As a matter of fact, we all need to give credence to unbelievable
things all the time, whether believer or atheist. Take the moon for instance.
Late Monday night and early Tuesday morning (dependent upon where you were
standing), you could see the moon turn a brilliant hue of red as it entered a
total lunar eclipse; the first of four to occur in an 18 month period. Wow, what a sight. Jordan and I, both with cozy cups of hot chocolate and I balancing in the other hand my camera, stood in awe and silence at the beauty that we were beholding. The fact that it was three in the morning didn't even phase us. We felt privileged to witness such a rare beauty. That is, rare until recently. Some are pointing skeptically to so-called
“religious extremists” who are connecting this incredibly uncommon tetrad
to the imminent return of Jesus and foreshadowing of significant change in
Israel to align with Biblical prophecy, as past tetrads have done. (If you want to hear how this is true, simply google "When was the last tetrad?" and history will speak for itself.) Others are seeing this display a bit more simply, and although rare and
brilliant, a phenomenon that is natural to the movement of the universe and
stands apart from any coinciding prophetic circumstances. Whatever theological, agnostic, religious,
or atheistic position you take, you must know that you find yourself in the
midst of a magnificent spectacle of existence. You can choose to take the brilliance of the sky as no more
than the result of a world we were crafted into by moving molecules, or
consider the possibility that the world was created by a God who uses the
scientific order of His creation to reveal to us His majesty, and ultimately,
His return.
It has always bothered me that science and creation have
attempted to oppose one another.
If you believe in the creation of the universe by one God, than why do
you fear that the logic of science and explanation will overrule God's involvement?
By proclaiming He is the Creator you are in essence proclaiming that He knows
His creation intimately. Therefore God designed the reason and
order that purposefully and intentionally give evidence to His very existence. If you otherwise state that science out
proves creation, than you are choosing to give no credence to, whether intentionally or naively, the things you cannot explain. You ignore those elements that science cannot justify, meanwhile acknowledging that the unexplainable does
indeed exist.
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