"It's Complicated"

 "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled," (John 11:33 KJV) 

  "The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought and imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart." (Genesis 6:5-6 NLT)

 When I was young, July 20, 1969, as I was listening to the television broadcast inside my Granny's house, I was outside in the front yard playing with my Tonka Truck and my pet hamster. I put my hamster inside the cab of the truck and rolled the truck down the hill of the yard, and the truck ended up tumbling down, with my hamster inside. 

 This was the day man first stepped foot on the moon; but for me, this was the day I caused my hamster to die! He didn't die right away, just was a little dizzy and disoriented. But that night, when he would have usually been spinning on the wheel in the cage, he just laid there in the woodchips, and died. I was really sorry for having it take a little spin in my Tonka Truck.

 I originally thought that my little buddy would enjoy the ride, but hamsters are not good at driving, to say the least. And they certainly don't do very well inside a toy truck, as it tumbles and flips over and over down the side of a hill! I guess I didn't think that all the way through! 

 God, on the other hand, does not have that excuse! Having the knowledge of both present and future, He knows what will happen, before it will happen. So why would he let it happen? Love is a pretty strange and complicated thing, because it does not think about that which is the worst, but only about that which is good and lovely.

 How do you mend a troubled heart? By love! You focus on and act upon love, doing those things that love does, regardless of the cost or the threat of being misunderstood... 

""No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believed in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him."" (John 3:13-17 NLT)