I don't pretend to understand it all.  In some ways, I don't try.  It's too much for my small, flawed mind and soul to understand.  The hurt, hate, pain, suffering, death in our world.

Everyone will do it.  Everyone will die.

The world is one large sphere of organized chaos.  People working, loving, living, hurting, dying.  Innocent, evil.  Young, old.  Rich, poor.  I see a young woman, strong and with a big heart, battling cancer.  She fights on, always smiling.  I hear of a man, working through college, who ends his life.  Mothers who bury their children.  Babies who's lives are forcibly ended before they even full enter our world.

I don't understand.  The terrible suffering.

It's in front of me--an element in the chaos none of us can escape.

But, I have to believe that, above that painful chaos--above the suffering masses--there is Him.  I have to believe it.  Because there has to be something Good, something True and Loving beyond this.  There has to be a reason for it--a Good that will come out of it.  Because I have seen great good arise from terrible moments.

In those moments of soul-shaking fear, physical or spiritual torment, or bodily pain; in those moments when we realize so coherently the end is imminent--for our loved ones or for us--He's there.  Above it all.

Above the chaotically painful parallel, there is a constant, truly good Perpendicular.

And I believe that He hears me.

Because as long as I keep my eyes perpendicular, my heart and soul faced upward, the Perpendicular will always be in view, always be in my path.  I must move forward through the parallel, trudge amongst the chaos, endure the pain and suffering.  Because at some point, even for me, the Perpendicular will call.

I will have to walk my final steps through the fire of death.

But, my path will, God willing, still be up.  Up.  To Him.

The Curer, the Lover, the Constant Good.

The Perpendicular.