It was October of 2006. We were just beginning our Hawaiian vacation. We woke up Sunday morning to the happy sounds of a little boy's chatter. The plan for the day included a leisurely breakfast, packing up and doing some sightseeing of the island, then a short flight to Maui where we would spend the next week.

  Minutes later plans changed drastically, as Laurella and I stood in our room, the floor began to shake and we heard the sound of the pictures on the walls rattling. The sensation of movement was very slight, but Laurella instantly knew it was an earthquake, having grown accustomed to them, being raised in California where it is a fairly common occurrence. To me it didn't feel any different than when the train would go past our house on the farm where I grew up.

    I didn't think much of it until about five minutes later when the power went out. Suddenly I realized there was trouble in paradise. The waves increased and the rain began to fall. The humidity rose and our comfort level decreased, rapidly.

       In a matter of moments the entire state of Hawaii had been crippled. Most of the radio stations were out of power. No one had access to TV. Most computers weren't working so we were unable to connect to the internet to discover what was happening.

      In this information flooded world everyone around us was starved for information. What's happening? When will things return to normal? Is everyone okay? For those of us in Hawaii the answers didn't start coming in until many hours had passed by.

        As I sat, covered in sweat, the air thick with humidity, I again thought of Paradise. As beautiful as it is here, nowhere on this planet is truly paradise.

       When God created this planet, He did so with the desire that there would be no sin. Everything was perfect. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:31 "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good..."