what is the meaning of this?

i had a good end to my work day yesterday. a co-worker, a couple months ago, had her kids taken away from her by her ex-husband. this guy, from everything i have seen from him and heard about him, is a douche, plain and simple; and he is out to make her life miserable regardless of how it hurts their kids. long story short, he won custody because certain papers weren't filed right, and the judge was sympathetic to him because he is in the military. anyways, this co-worker has been no angel herself and there are times, in the past, where i have questioned her fitness as a mother. however, last week she and i had little talk. it seems that this whole ordeal has caused her to come to some serious conclusions about her life, and she went on and on about how she quit drinking and going out and is seriously trying to get her life together. she told me how she cannot wait to get her kids back so she can be the mother they deserve. and she told me that God does everything for a reason.

last year anne and i were hanging out with some friends, and one of these friends brought his own friend a long. the tag a long friend is someone who drives anne and i nuts, and i'll give you an example why. he is a know-it-all, and not only is he a know-it-all but he's also an atheist. on top of that, he is just weird and says things that are totally inappropriate. so on this particular occasion, the topic of sex came up. and i cannot remember all the details of the conversation, but for some reason, weird, atheist, know-it-all, guy blurted out, "sex is meaningless. ALL sex is meaningless." now what bugs me about this is that i think he knows that anne and i are christians, and he said this simply to pick a fight. that didn't happen; we all just kind of awkwardly looked at him and changed the subject, but i have been thinking about night ever since. half of me wishes i would have asked him to explain. my guess is he would have said that sex is meaningless because ultimately everything is meaningless.

john ortberg tells the story of how the famous atheist, bertrand russell, would describe all reality as meaningless. ultimately, according to russell, we are all bits of carbon that exist for a short amount of time on this planet that will someday be consumed by fire and then frozen when the sun burns out. at that point the earth will be be a big floating rock and nothing that has ever happened on it will have mattered. thus, ultimately, there is no meaning. in the 15 billion or so years that earth will have existed, that will be nothing compared to the infinite amount of time that preceded its existence or the infinite amount that will follow. once again, i don't know for sure that weird, atheist, guy would have said that, but that would be my guess. how depressing...

now the thing is, is that sex does have meaning. biologically, sex has purpose-- procreation-- but in the context of human relationships sex can have a lot of meaning. for two humans who love one another, sex can be a way of communicating deep, passionate love. for two people who are just using each other for pleasure, sex can mean, "i don't really care about you as a person, but i'll use you to temporarily feel good." so just like words are sounds that mean something in a particular context, sex is an act which can also mean something in a particular context. but back to russell.

if all context is destroyed, then is all meaning destroyed? because, it seems, meaning must have context. perhaps, but in the end, believing that one day the sun will destroy everything rendering meaning meaningless is just that-- belief. it is based on faith. what if scientists are wrong? what if this reality isn't the only one there is? ortberg has a great comment concerning russell's thoughts. he says that russell's ideas just might be true, but even if they are, nobody lives that way.

yesterday my co-worker stood in the pharmacy smiling. i asked her if she got her kids back, and she told me she was going to pick them up tomorrow. she said God was in that court room. she said she prayed and prayed. she repeated her vow to change her life and clean up her act. she was full of joy. in the bible, God is often portrayed as a parent or a husband. the deepest human relationships are often pictures of who God is. so i couldn't help but think that while my co-worker was getting her kids back, maybe God was also getting back one of his.