for God so loved the world (and haiti)

Regarding Haiti, I have a confession: it's difficult for me to empathize in situations like these. I know how that sounds, but let me explain.

I actually didn't even know about the earthquake the night it happened--I forgot to check my iGoogle news before bed, and without cable or the digital box, it's the only way I find out about things anymore. And then I wasn't on the computer until I got to work around lunchtime the next day. I read a few articles and it was crazy, looked through some pictures and at one point I nearly cried. It came up in conversation some throughout the day, but generally, once I got to work it was just another thing.

The news keeps coming, and in some ways it's worse, more shocking than the first reports. In other ways, I'm astonished at how people are coming together to help, to give, to pray for Haiti, and that amazes me. But in going about my day, it's so easy for news--even news like this--to become just another thing. Another earthquake, another tsunami, another school shooting. The same thing happened my freshman year with Virginia Tech. It's just so big, so far away.

However, this post isn't mean to lament my inability to empathize fully, but to say: we have a God who loves us and cares about how we feel, how we hurt! All throughout the Bible, you see people crying out to God, and he hears them. He hears the suffering of the Israelites, and he delivers them. Nehemiah mourned over the state of Jerusalem, prayed to God on its behalf, and God made a way for the wall to be rebuilt. Jesus walked around and healed people, freed people from bondage to sin. And God sent that guy to save the whole world! For he so loved the whole world, including Haiti.

I know that my God is a God whose heart spills over for all of creation. All of creation. Not some of it at one time and the rest can wait until he's finished with this other piece, not the ones who ''deserve'' it only or who are ''more in need'' of it. He loves the whole country of Haiti and I believe his heart is breaking right now over the pain they are feeling. And he loves Pat Robertson, and he loves me, even if I forget or find myself caring more about a passing problem than God's people.

And in the face of that, this is what I come to: all this talk of God's love being enough? It is. It really is, it's so much more than that, even. And I know that if we continually give our hearts to him, that he is working to replace it with his own. And that's something good.

''And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.'' 2 Corinthians 3:18