“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the
LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD, be strong and take heart and
wait for the LORD.” Psalm 27:13-14
Trust me— I know those days where it feels nearly impossible
to see God working. Those days and I are dear friends. Whether it be the
realization that you can’t fix your friend’s problem, you are deep in
heartbreak, or are in a season of unwanted transition, you keep looking for
some explanation—the why—but come up with nothing. And if you are feeling
particularly brave you might muster up the courage to turn on NPR, or read
about the refugee crisis, or walk through the “bad part of town.”
You brave soul, you. If you’re anything like me you go down
one of two paths—your eyes start to glaze over and you begin to feel numb. Or
you feel the hurt, and you feel it deeply.
Disengagement or engagement. One is certainly simpler than
the other, and is also the one our culture tends to promote. To be engaged is
to be vulnerable, to be open to brokenness and heartache, and to make space for
confusion and questioning. I promise one thing—life is far more straightforward
when I live in the black and white, cut and dry, and just do my own thing.
But as I allow myself to feel the immensity of the world’s
pain, not ignoring it but engaging in the messiness of it, I feel myself taking
steps closer and closer to the heart of God. Sometimes those steps feel more
like an army crawl through some blackberry bushes, but they are steps
nonetheless. If I am brought to tears by stories of trauma, loss, and
brokenness, how much more grieved is the God who loves and cares for His
creation infinitely more than I am able to?
I think often it can feel like you are alone in witnessing struggle.
That’s the thing about hurt—it is so, so isolating. Yet I believe in a God who
is ever-present, who knows more intimately about the pain of others than I am
ever able to see. God is in the business of giving me more than I can handle. I
promise this isn’t blasphemy, hear me out. It seems like the Church often
believes “God will never give you more than you can handle” means he will never
overwhelm us with the weight of this world. I wonder if it might mean that He
gives us Christ and the Holy Spirit to take the burden on our behalf, while we
step forward in obedience intentionally choosing not to ignore the darkness.
I know the hopelessness that can accompany opening your eyes
to hurt. But like Psalm 27 states, I choose to remain confident that I will see
His goodness in the midst of it, not in spite of it.
I see a mom who after being with two partners who physically
and emotionally abused her—at times in front of her child—is in a healthy,
supportive marriage with a man who loves her babies like his own. I see a woman
in recovery after years of addiction, all because her love for her little one
is stronger. I see parents who despite years of trauma are giving their son the
childhood they didn’t have.
For all the horror stories, I could tell you just as many stories
of moments where I sat in someone else’s living room and experienced the
goodness of God in the last place I expected it. While I can’t be confident
that these huge problems will be solved any time soon, I can rest in complete
confidence that I will see His goodness today.
