OUR
CHERNOBYL

Topics: Adam and Eve; Fall of Humanity; Human Condition; Salvation; Sin; Sinful Nature; Woundedness

References: Genesis 3; Romans 3:10; 5:12; 8:22

I have on my desktop a picture of Sasha, five, who was born in Chernobyl after the meltdown and explosions at the Russian nuclear facility in 1986. Sasha’s tiny arm grips the side of a crib. His other hand flails upward toward his ear. His head and shoulders appear normal, but on Sasha’s chest is a lump the size of a softball, and his belly is so big he looks pregnant.

His legs are oversized and blocky, and he has no knees, only rounded flesh flowing awkwardly to his oversized feet. From the bottom of his stomach protrudes a rounded flow of flesh as though it were a separate limb, stopped in half growth. Sasha lives in constant pain.

So do we.

I believe, without question, that none of us are happy in the way we were supposed to be happy. I believe that nobody on this planet is so secure, so confident, in their state that they feel the way Adam and Eve felt in the garden before they knew they were naked. I believe we are in the wreckage of a war, a kind of Hiroshima, a kind of Mount Saint Helens, with souls distorted like the children of Chernobyl. As terrible as it is to think about these things, as ugly as it is to face them, I have to see the world this way in order for it to make sense. I have to believe something happened, and we are walking around holding our wounds.

—Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What (Nelson, 2004)