Longing for Redemption

This is Aidan. (I took care of her a few times last summer, and she's been featured here before.) Last weekend, Aidan's little friend and cohort--almost exactly the same age as she is--drowned in a lake. We don't know the family, but we do know of the family, and this tragedy has been the pall our own family has laboured under for the past week. My oldest children are near enough the age of the toddlers's parents to be able to imagine in some small way what it might be like to lose a child in this way, and because we know Aidan, we have glimpse of the charming little live wire that has been lost.

There are those we know, like Aidan's parents and others too, who are much more affected by this than we are, and whose grief is much greater than ours. We are all wishing that we lived in a world where accidents like this didn't--couldn't--happen. This little guy's loss tugs at us and reminds us once again how wrong things are in our world.

We're longing for the redemption of creation when everything that was lost to us in the fall is restored in Christ, when "creation itself will....be set free from the bondage of decay". We long for the fullness of time when all things--things on earth, and things in heaven--are summed up in Christ.