I Remain Confident

10:01 PM

“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.