God created the heavens and the earth. Both were beautiful beyond description, but the earth, ah the earth, defied description. The flowers, the trees and bushes, the multi-colored grasses, creatures large and small, the vividly azure seas, the blue skies, the puffy white clouds, the brilliant sun, all of the changing seasons, and man: all so beautiful and all so vulnerable to ourselves and everything that makes us who we are. Lest we forget; He wanted us to take care of this wonderful place we call “home.”
I see us destroying everything He made. I see fires on our West coast, floods in the Mid-West, tornadoes and hurricanes inland and on our coasts, and ugly storms in the South-East. Our glaciers around the world are melting at an unprecedented rate, and His creatures are struggling to survive on the ice flows breaking away from the glaciers. We’ve demonized our air with acid pollution, and our oceans are becoming extinct from all of the refuge we are dumping in them every year. Our fossil fuels are polluting the air we breathe, and very few methods of sustainable fuels are being developed. Never forget the fear that the atomic bomb brought to the world in 1945.
Although people have banded together to try and save our planet, I pray that God will see we are trying to correct our mistakes and that He will forgive us for our transgressions. Dropping out of the multi-national environmental program did not help the United States. Every country will have to do their part to clean up every bit of land, air, and ocean that we have. We need to stop the destruction of His “Holy gift” and begin to renew the recovery of our ecological system before its too late.
God smiles on us, but I firmly believe, like every parent, He will punish us for our lack of concern for the earth He gave us. He will send the fires, the floods, and the ugly storms to tell us that our time here on earth is short and very fragile. Our climate is changing, and we need to stop being so greedy. “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or power: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1: 16-17).
I don’t want to live forever, but I do want my children and grandchildren to be able to live a wonderful life in a beautiful world. I want them to see the preciousness of life that I see, and I want them to say from the highest mountain, “God is awesome!”
Anna Hartt
