Beauty, Brokeness, and the End of the Road

It's easy to show the beautiful.  Even a non-photographer with a cheap cell phone can at least capture a glimpse of the breathtaking wonder of nature. And who doesn't enjoy looking at the splendor of God's creation, right?  Snow covered mountains, rushing waterfalls, lush green forests...And there is so much beauty out there.  Our God is an artist that puts all human artistry to shame.  

And yet, it's not all beautiful out there.  As I sit clicking away on my laptop, thinking about what I will prepare for dinner, listening to Josh practice his guitar, watching my boys play LEGOS...children are starving.  More than twenty-six thousand five hundred in fact died today, and yesterday, and the day before from preventable, poverty related causes... Many of them never learned that Jesus loves them.  Never knew peace or joy or hope.

Heartbreaking? absolutely

Hopeless? Not a chance!

"...If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and the malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday.  The LORD will guide you always..." Isa. 58:9b-11a

Someday I will reach the end of my road.  My life on earth will be over.  The beauty and the brokeness of this life will pass away and I will enter Glory.  My perspective will change in an instant and my days will be called into account.  How will my moments have been spent?  Will they have mattered?  Is enough ever enough?  If I have reveled in beauty while others suffered in hopelessness, will that have been enough? 

I've decided that there will never be a time in my life when I will have done enough.  Not as long as children are hungry...not as long as thousands are dying without the hope of Christ. 

I pray that I will run this race to win the prize.  

May my every moment, my every day have an impact for eternity.