harsh reality

I was reading Luke chapter 21 and Jesus is explaining the signs of the end of the age. not a mere man, Jesus. those words in red. to me, knowing that the words are from Jesus has a bigger impact. and it should.

here's a blurb (Luke 21:9-11)

"when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. these things must happen first, but the end will not come right away. then he said to them "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. there will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven."

how funny is it when your world somehow completely compliments the scripture you read that same day? funny. ironic. just too perfect. to me, it must be God getting through.

in this case, it wasn't flowers and rainbows of hope and love. it was the ugly truth. the process of the end times. the snowball effect of sin in our world. the unimaginable actually happening. the reality of this world. disgusting and cold. no I'm not happy about it. it's keeping me up at night.

for a long while I wouldn't watch or read the news, it was all too sad and depressing. but I started up again during election time to stay in the loop somewhat. I was feeling stupid not knowing what was happening; listening but not participating in discussions because I was simply clueless. so I was catching up on the news yesterday (I use cnn.com) and was horrified. have you read the news lately?!

** a mom murdered her 2 boys (2 & 8) and then tried to commit suicide. slit their throats and then her own. when she was unsuccessful at killing herself, she made up a story about being kidnapped and he killed the boys. the police found her boys in her van, left for dead. the 8 year old somehow survived and was able to tell the police who did this to him, not to mention, he witnessed his brother's death.

** the Fort Hood incident. cnn is calling it a massacre. 13 dead.

** the Ohio man with 11 bodies found buried all over his home. a murderer, a serial rapist & sex offender.

** FL baby Shannon found under a bed

** a 30 year old woman found dead in the lake right outside my house!

I can hardly believe it all. I can't fathom what goes on in the minds of these people. what happened in their lives to lead to this? this isn't just ugly, it's really twisted.

it's easy to say sin is sin, but when you put in terms of shoplifting vs murder & rape ... I don't know how God deals with it all. yet another reason why He's so awesome I suppose.

another aspect to this is the media and what stories they present. our culture is so numb. we seem to "need" more violence, more excitement, more consequences, more, more, more to be interested. (side note: it makes me think of Monsters Inc. how they need screams to run their city, but kids just aren't scared anymore)

so back to the verse -

to me it's clear that this kind of ugliness will continue on. as nasty as the world is, it will get worse before it ends. there will come a point we will want it to end, and it won't. God is going to allow our sin to snowball, or I should say, He is allowing it. Jesus says these things MUST happen. and in a godly sort of way, He will say I told you so.

I only listed criminal stories because that's what I read about. there are also earthquakes & hurricanes happening worldwide, destroying lives. starving people are everywhere. diseases - AIDS, cancer, notice all the drug commercials on tv? those are mindgames. there are more and more and more ... with more coming.

they are all fearful events. unpredictable. grown mature people of the world, but undeveloped & immature spirits that have no grasp. scary to watch people lose such control, giving in to the enemy.

I don't know why God brought all this to my attention. I didn't think I was living in a dream-world, I knew ugliness was out there. I don't want to know these stories. I don't want to hear about the details. my heart aches. I can't sleep. I don't understand.

trying to find some peace with Luke 21:14, "but make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves," and also Luke 21:19, "by standing firm you will gain life."

what do you think about the end times? will we see it?

I've always known my kids will see more than I, but it's their kids (my grandkids) and will see the end. I think we are close. really close.

where do you get your news? is there a "nicer" news resource out there?