Pain, Hope, and the Other Four-Letter Word

Life is hard. Pain. We need miracles. Hope.

This morning purple, pink, and orange whooshed across my bathroom window in fluorescent hues. From my lips, Thank you, God! Still, the weight of a very, very hard season threatens to suffocate me in despair. Pain is a four-letter word.

There’s another one: HOPE. Unlike pain that just happens, hope takes work. Belief in ultimate good is a concerted choice. To write this is my way of punching a hole in the dark: to acknowledge the ache and find a way through.

How long, oh Lord? The busted-up marriage. Chronic pain. The addicted friend. The hurting child. The aches we experience hurt so much. The past cries out for lost innocence and pain-filled regret. The future can barely open her mouth in faith. The present? Perhaps, like me, this is the place you can barely stand to be because it seems incomprehensible and unexpected.

But HERE is where we are. The other four-letter word.

HERE mixed with HOPE feels risky and almost profane. To hope in a God who may seem lightyears away, silent, or even cruel. I ask Him regularly, “What are you doing?”

It has often seemed, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God.”*

Is the God we believe to be good really a charlatan? Absolutely not.

He does not leave us alone. In fact, He runs to comfort us. Isaiah 40 opens with, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” That is not an angry, far away God.

Even though we don’t understand the pain allowed to ravage this world, God gives us his PRESENTNESS.

“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.”*

In the midst of extreme pain, God gives extreme endurance, strength, and even joy. Still. His reassurance echoes in my soul, I love you, my child. I cannot understand it fully, and I don’t think I’m meant to (at least, not yet).

He ravishes me with a sunrise. He sends me friend after friend after friend who represent Christ the Lord. His withness is hope.

Life is hard. It’s full of pain and four-letter words. Darkness hovers around the light. But I do not believe in defeat.

We have the miracle of a loving God. I choose to cling to the hope that is HERE.

That is the way through.

*Isaiah 40:27-29 (NIV)

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