The end of the world came to some one million families in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. The end of the world came to millions of people in the islands of Southeast Asia in December 2004. The end of the world came for 40,000 Pakistanis with a 7.6 earthquake in 2005.

When talking about the last things, Jesus tells his followers, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Of course, it doesn't take a natural disaster to destroy our lives and our worlds. The death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the loss of a career, the contraction of an illness or a disease --- there are many ways in which we can feel that, for us, heaven and earth are passing away. It is an awful feeling of desperation and loneliness. When our worlds end, we realize in an unmistakable way that we are not in control of our lives.

Yes, heaven and earth will pass away. But Jesus reminds us that his words do not pass away. The love of God does not pass away.

It can seem impossible to believe in the love of God when everything around us and inside of us is crumbling. It can seem impossible to maintain hope that a loving creator is actually in control of the world. Jesus assures us that God is indeed in control, but that we are not given the vision to see how. We are not allowed to see, or know, how all these things work together. It is painful and frustrating to experience physical and emotional disasters, to crave hope, to crave relief from the rising waters of a flood or the rising pain of a personal crisis.

We do not know the day or the hour that our world will end. We are promised, however, that one day the lid will be peeled off this world and we will see as God sees, and know what God knows, and perhaps then it will seem clear and make sense.

The end of the world came for St. Julian of Norwich in 1342 at the age of 30, ill and on her death bed. In fact, she was pronounced dead, and while ill she had a vision of the love of Christ and wrote down what she saw.

"All shall be well," she wrote, "and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." This is the message from someone between worlds, with one ending and another beginning. She saw the promise of Christ coming true.

Not all of us will be so blessed. It is a hard thing to maintain faith in God when our world seems to be ending. It is a hard thing to believe in the promise of wellness. One of many reasons I'll never be a saint is when I am in a crisis, I typically focus on what is wrong, not what is right. I focus on what is not well. I become consumed by what I perceive as the wrongness of the circumstances that are causing me pain.

But there may be rightness, wellness taking place because I can only see through my own experience. I do not know how God might be working. Perhaps a new, better world is about to be born.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.