This post written by a professor at the RPTS seminary made me want to cry. It talks about a rare disease which dramatically accelerates the effects of aging in its victims - the children who are born with it die by around age 13 from heart attacks or strokes. But it was the pictures of a little boy with that curious mixture of three-year-old charm and withered decrepitude that got me.

This isn't right! I thought. And I believe that 'down in our gut' as humans we know that things just shouldn't be this way. Such decay and death is all messed up - a world made very good turned upside down. But amidst this helpless frustration my mind went over to another cry, a voice that assures that it will not always be this way - some day all the twisted lots in life will finally be straightened, never again to bend:

"For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

and be glad in my people;

no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping

and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

an infant who lives but a few days,

or an old man who does not fill out his days,

for the young man shall die a hundred years old,

and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain

or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD,

and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;

the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

and dust shall be the serpent’s food.

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain,"

says the LORD.