HOW LONG

Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans, and Louisiana. Alabama. Mississippi. Other places.

We can't even count the dead yet.

Sometimes this world sucks, totally and absolutley.

I don't want to hear reasons, or justifications, or even assurances. I don't need any of that.

What I see is that God's creation is still easily able to cause far more damage than a few thousand terrorists. It is also able to grab our attention, and hold it, at a moment's notice.

As a young boy, my parents drove me and my siblings through an area of West Bend, Wisconsin (where I was born) that had been devastated by a tornado, leaving two people dead and hundreds without homes. That tornado ripped through a BRICK buidling as if it wasn't even there. And there were only two dead. I didn't need reassurance, I didn't need reasons.

What I saw that day was almost total devastation over an area a little less than two square miles. Houses had been torn assunder, leaving what looked like badly stacked piles of lumber and trash everywhere. Clothes, trees, dirt, bricks, glass, wires, cars; you name it, it was thrown. I didn't need reassurances, I didn't need reasons.

As I watched the footage tonight regarding the areas crushed by Hurricane Katrina, I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I still can't. Maybe later, maybe I'll cry a few tears as I lay down and ask God the question I have been wanting to ask; the same question I always ask, every time tragedy strikes.

"You see God, right now, I don't need reassurance, and I don't need to know why."

"What I need, Abba, is an end."

What is the question?

"When? How long? How much more, and when will it be the last time?"

I will hear silence tonight as an answer to my questions, and that, more than likely, is what will cause the tears to flow. I think of people I know whose lives have been utterly reshaped in the space of a few hours, bloggers and friends, and I cannot imagine how they must feel. I know how I felt when my life was turned completely upside down. I don't want them, I don't want ANYONE to feel that...ever again.

"How long Abba?"