Natural diasters ravishing entire cities, homes and lives across the world.

A country at war abroad.

Its citizens at war within themselves.

2005 has been tough for a lot of people. Brokenness doesn't even begin to encompass what most have experienced.

Recently, a friend told me that even tears, the normal coping mechanism for 99.9% of Creation (or so it seems), couldn't do her brokenness justice. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems to accurately give a glimpse into the hurt that has dug so deeply into the hearts of God's children.

Amidst the darkness, however, there's hope. We can't comprehend it, because it is too vast and beyond U.S., metric or any type of human measure. Though we lack understanding, we can be assured it is there. And in abundance.

"Hope without patience results in the illusion of optimism or, more terrifying, the desperation of fanaticism. The hope necessary to initiate us into the adventure must be schooled by patience if the adventure is to be sustained. Through patience, we learn to continue hope, even though our hope seems to offer little chance of fulfillment...Yet patience equally requires hope, for without hope, patience too easily accepts the world and the self for what it is, rather than what it can or should be." -Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character

More to come.