Hope

Almost one year ago, our church lost one of our young adults to a life-long addiction. Nic Paradise passed from this life to the next, leaving behind a son, fiance, parents, and two sisters. It was a time of confusion, and darkness.

Today, hope is beginning to emerge from this experience.

Nic's fiance, Liz Trainor, is making great strides at a rehab facility in Arizona as a result of the generosity and love of one family from the Rochester Church. She continues, alongside her grandmother, to wrestle with all of life's questions surrounding identity, esteem, suffering, and relationships.

Today, Carmen Paradise, one of Nic's sisters, will marry fellow musician extraordinaire, Peter Leclair. Both have become good friends over the last year. They've played twice in our Emerging Artist series, and I've gone to local venues to listen to them jam. We will laugh, cry, sing, and listen at the wedding which will take place in just two short hours. And we will begin to believe that as tough and cruel as life can be, hope always has a chance.

If you are in the midst of an addiction, there is hope for you. If you have a spouse, child, or loved one battling the suffocating force of addiction, please do not give up. I've seen far too many resurrection stories in the midst of death to succumb to the notion that "what will be will be."

God still raises people from the dead. This is the hope Christianity has to offer to this world.