Japan, my heart goes out to you

My heart is heavy for Japan. A month ago today, he led me to the Japan Society during a prayer time (which I wrote about earlier) and told me that Japan was precious to him. Yet just a week ago, Japan got slammed with the largest earthquake in its history, an ensuing tsunami, now a looming nuclear disaster. What's next? Hasn't Japan suffered enough?

I look through video footage of the incredible power of the waves, tumbling over seawalls as if they were merely speed bumps and rushing inland like an army carrying away anything not tied down; pictures of the aftermath, of planes and cars and parts of houses strewn about like toys carelessly dumped from a toy box; articles the now half a million Japanese in emergency shelters...and my heart breaks for people I don't know and have zero connection to. I can't help but wonder - how much more must God's heart hurt for a nation that is so precious to him?

When I went last time to the Japan Society, I felt crushed by feelings of spiritual darkness, hunger, oppression, and hopelessness in Japan. However, some of these are now physically felt, with rolling blackouts to conserve power, food rations at some shelters amounting to about 1.5 rice balls per day, and fear of radiation poisoning leading even those who live outside the official evacuation advisory area to leave their homes.

If our God is the Creator and Master of the Universe, if he came to "provide for those who grieve in Zion -- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair" (Isaiah 61:3), then what beauty will rise from these ashes? If what Paul wrote here is true...

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:18-22)

...then there has got to be an incredible glory that is coming if it's not worth comparing to what we're experiencing now. All I know how to do at this point is pray, so Lord, let that day of glory come quickly.

On a side note - closer to home, we're currently in the middle of JapanNYC, which is a month-long celebration of Japanese culture in a variety of forms, both traditional and contemporary: art, music, literature, film, architecture, anime, etc. This was planned months ago, but now is becoming a tribute to the Japanese people, (including concerts where proceeds are now going to disaster relief) so go check it out if you can!