[Untitled]. What else is there to say?

How can you rest in the Lord when all you fear is the day His hand will not protect you?

Just yesterday, my own struggles were ripped from my chest in such a visceral way that I had to pull over (I was driving). I hadn’t even cried so hard when I watched Mom die. I saw something that took the culmination of the last two years--of the last five deaths (two grandparents, two cats, and my mother), several illnesses and subsequent relational issues, my fear of losing yet another loved one, and the pain of watching the rightness in this world being made wrong--and ripped it out of me. I know people talk about being torn down, about being brought to their knees and rebuilt, but I don’t think folks who haven’t felt that realize what that means. There are no words to that sort of pain. That level of despair. Of hopelessness. If you'd have asked me to stand, I don't think I could have.

People like to approach Christians and expect them to have the answer to the problem of evil, only to be then scoffed for their reply, but it is not only Christians that need to have an answer for the problem of evil. We all do, and how we answer that is what we cling to when those most dear to us are torn from our grasp, when we watch injustices abound and innocents suffer the consequences for others’ actions.

In those moments, when you realize what you really are: a human, finite, limited, unable to do the things you know you want and need, all you have left is to lean on whatever answer you gave above.

In this world, Jesus tells us we will have trouble but that He has overcome it (John 16:33). At least our answer gives us hope. He has also told us not to be surprised when trouble comes (1 Peter 4:12). These verses have carried me through all of my pain, and still do. Every single day, I remind myself of how good God actually is. How, despite all the raging pain in everyone’s hearts, the sorrow everywhere, the anxiety, the depression, there really still is something to rejoice about. To celebrate. To praise God for the fact that there even still is something to be grateful for. I see Him every day in the sun, the rain, my family, my cats, my work, my leisure. He is everywhere.

I pity those who choose to rest their hopes on the assumption that we are all just puppets dancing to the tune to our DNA, or are nothing more than the byproduct of a million choices. We are more than this, and we all know this. Else we would never find ourselves on our knees, our throats raw, our chests impossibly tight, our breath lacking, and our tears never ending as we scream that life isn't supposed to be like this. We know good and we know evil, and we know that this world is not as it should be. But if we are only the byproducts of choices and chance, then I ask you: why do you cry? For what are you yearning, if not for the peace and joy and symbiosis of the Garden?

For I tell you, as dark as this world is, if it was not for Yeshua, there would be no light at all.

John 8: 12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

So when those moments come, and they will, you have a choice: wallow in darkness, or stand in Him.

Read: John 16:33, 1 Peter 412, Romans 8:19-37, Rev 21:3-5, Hebrews 11.