Without God and Without Hope in the World

Sitting around the labor and delivery unit at the hospital last week left me with much time on my hands. That meant I could do a lot of reading (praise God), but sometimes I forgot my books at the hotel. That meant I had to choose from the L&D's woefully understocked library. The choice pics I had to decide between were either the LaLesche League's publication and the Ladies Home Journal.

When no one was around, I picked up the Ladies' Home Journal and found an article about Katie Couric. I'm always find our nation's icons to be interesting, so I began reading. I pretty much assumed that Ms. Couric was without God, but I found that she is without hope in this world too.

Part of the article took up the topic of Ms. Couric's late husband who seems to have died from cancer. The author asked if the couple talked about his prognosis and the immanence of his death. Couric responded with the following,

You know, this is one of the big regrets I have. I sort of made a decision that I was going t protect Jay a little bit, because I didn't want him to spend whatever time he had left without hope....I always thought Jay's quality of life would have been so much worse if he had felt that there was such a small chance of survival. (LHJ, October 2005)

This couldn't be a more succinct affirmation of a "under the sun" worldview: Death isn't a subject you talk about much because there isn't anything that will bring a smile to your face. To the spiritually blind, death brings clouds of despair. To the believing, death is a subject much studied, meditated upon, and even (to a degree) rejoiced in.

In reading this my delight in knowing that "He who believes in [Jesus], though he die, yet he shall live" is mixed with sorrow over other's unbelief and resulting misery.

"Night is coming."

John 9:4