The Whole World Is Waiting

(from Romans 8:18-30, a letter to people who were hurting)

Once, a man named Paul sat down to write a letter.

He was writing to people who were tired. Some of them were frightened. Some had cried so much they had run all the way out of tears. The world around them felt broken, and they wondered if it would ever, ever be mended.

Maybe you have wondered that too.

When something breaks and stays broken, or someone you love is sick, or the news is sad again. When you look at the whole wide world and a small voice inside you asks, "Will anyone ever fix this?"

Paul knew that ache. So listen to what he told them.

He said: even the world is waiting.

Think of it. The mountains and the seas. The little sparrows and the tall trees. The wind and the rain and every growing thing. All of it is groaning, the way someone groans when they are hurting, but also the way a mother groans right before her baby is born.

That kind of groaning means something new is on its way.

The whole world is leaning forward on its tiptoes, Paul said. Waiting. Watching the door. Waiting for the day when every broken thing is made new and good and whole, and the sad things are turned right side up at last.

And you, little one, you are waiting too, even when you don't have the words for it. There is a hope tucked deep inside you, deeper than you can see, like a seed under the winter ground.

Paul said: we don't hope for what we already have. We hope for what is coming. So we wait, and we wait with our hearts wide open.

Paul told them something else, too. When you are so sad you cannot even pray, when you don't know what to say and only a small sigh comes out, God's own Spirit is right there inside you. He takes your little sigh and carries it straight to the Father's heart. You are never groaning alone. Not for one moment.

God is not far off, watching the world break. He is close. He is working. He is gathering his children, every single one, and he will not stop, and he will not lose even one of them along the way. He knew you and loved you before the stars were lit, and he is bringing you all the way home.

The One who will mend it has a name.

His name is Jesus. And the same Jesus who came once, soft and small in the straw, is coming back. Coming back to wipe the tears. Coming back to make the mountains sing and the broken things whole.

So when the world feels heavy, listen to the groaning. It is the sound of a world getting ready to be born.

And that birth has already begun, in the hope God has planted in you, and one day Jesus will finish it, and there will be nothing left to mend.