Lilie is the newborn daughter of our friends Robby and Jenna and as I write this she is fighting for her life in the NICU.
Brian and I have wept and prayed for this child since the night she was born. Normally, I only allow myself to empathize with the suffering of others for a moment before I mentally change the subject and get on with my life, but lately I've lingered there in the misty-eyed moments hurting with my friends who hurt, allowing the things that grieve God's heart to grieve mine.
I've found it's a hard place to be because the cliches aren't enough and I don't have the answer. I know some things for certain and those are the things I'm meditating on as I pray for little Lilie today.
- God created us to live forever. Not just spiritually, but physically too. Our bodies were not designed to fail.
- Sin has made a mess of God's creation. Our efforts to be good fail. Our economies fail. Our marriages fail. Our bodies fail.
- God has a rescuing plan to save us from our failure. His name is Jesus.
- One day that plan will come to completion in a new heaven and a new earth and with new bodies that will live forever with Jesus, our Rescuer.
It's all the stuff in between our failure and our rescue that I'm unsure of. It's intellectually more than I can do to piece all this together to form a theology of suffering. So today I'm just going to lift Lilie up to our Rescuer and trust in the things that I know are true about Him. He loves Lilie and He loves her parents. And if their pain hurts my broken, sinful heart, I know it hurts His perfect, loving heart.
Will you pray for Lilie and her parents today?
