By Linda Hogue

There are a few who would argue with my position that everyone loves life. I hear them say, “I hate my life,” or, “Life sucks.” That’s doesn’t sound like a love of life, does it?

But we all have a survival instinct. We want to live. And the fact that we know our circumstances are not good indicates that we know there is something better. That something better is life. And that’s what we’re after. Real life.

So I suppose it’s really a question of evil and pain and where it all comes from. The big answer is that we live in a spoiled universe, and that things are not as God intended. They will be again someday, but we live in the here and now. I heard of a question that a grieving mother posed to God in the height of her pain after the death of her young son. She asked what any of us would ask: “God, where were you when my son died?” She believed God could have prevented it. But instead she was dealt the loss of one dear to her. Then, in her heart of hearts, she heard an inaudible voice answer, “Right where I was when My Son died.”

You see, God doesn’t change, He doesn’t move, and His love and power don’t fluctuate. He grieves with us. He offers solace. He offers a better life. He challenges us, encourages us, and partners with us.

Sometimes the thing we aim for is not the thing we achieve. Sometimes our target is wrong. “I just want to be happy.” So I try this or that, and strive to get people to do what I want to make me happy. There! That should do it. Right? Oh, wait. That wasn’t it. So I try something else. It lasts for awhile…

But what if I forget about myself and aim for something entirely different? What if I try to make someone else happy instead? It’s kind of a “cast your bread upon the waters” thing. Maybe that’s where I find life. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place. (If you voted for this answer, you passed the course. Well done!)

But back to the “He offers a better life” part. If her son is still dead, how is that better? The answer, I believe, is in the hope. Not in the hope of his return to this earth, but in the hope that comes from trusting the One who holds all things, despite the rottenness that we live in. We hope for better and it will happen, some of it later, but some of it now.

The Bible talks about the whole creation “groaning” for the restoration of all things. All things! That’s not just people, but this whole planet, at the very least. God’s going to make it all better. He’s going to return it to its original condition as when He first made it, the way it was before death and ugliness entered in. And for now, the place where we live today, He really does walk through it with us. That’s my hope, and it’s been my life.