I have noticed in my own life that I will look at circumstances as “bad” or “good” depending on the outcome and how I feel about it. Especially recently, though, I have been challenged to look for the good in every situation—to find God in it. This doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily happy or comfortable in whatever is surrounding me, but I want to push through that discomfort to see what God has for me. I do believe there is always beauty that He can bring from ashes, that He is always bringing good even out of really yucky stuff. This doesn’t mean that He causes the yucky stuff or that we change the suffering by positive thinking, and I think that’s sometimes where we get tripped up. We don’t believe a god of love could watch us go through difficult things because that’s not loving—but perhaps the most loving thing to do is to allow the difficult things but still to bring hope and joy in the middle.
I just finished reading The Watchmaker’s Daughter, a newer book about Corrie ten Boom’s life during and after World War 2. If you know me, you know that Corrie is one of my heroes, so a new book about her life was right up my alley. One of the themes that comes through repeatedly is the way the ten Boom family all tried to find joy and hope in extremely dire situations. Whether hiding Jews and working with the underground, enduring prison, or dealing with the torture and horrific conditions in a concentration camp, they all realized their relationship with God got them through and allowed them to see the good in terrible situations. Her sister Betsie, who died while in the concentration camp, told her sister Corrie that people would listen to them because they had been through such awful conditions. And the message was clear—no matter how deep and dark the pit in which they found themselves, God’s love was deeper still and carried them through. Corrie went on to travel the world speaking about forgiveness and God’s love, and she had earned her place to do so as she worked with communities who were forsaken and abandoned by all other help.
I realize that I want that ability—that rebellious hope that I see in so many whose stories I hear and read about. Katherine Wolf—mostly paralyzed and wheelchair bound after a life-altering (and almost ending) aneurysm in her 20’s—throws a breakfast party each year on the anniversary to grieve with others and to celebrate the good God has brought out of even the most painful places in her life. Vaneetha Risner—surviving polio as a child, and walking through the death of a child, the divorce and abandonment of her husband and the diagnosis of post-polio syndrome which will slowly steal any physical ability she has until she is completely incapacitated—speaking of how God doesn’t always provide deliverance out of a situation but provides the sustenance to get through the situation. Paul—shipwrecked repeatedly, stoned, rejected, betrayed, left to die, imprisoned for years—talking of hope and joy that he sees even while he is suffering. Jesus—enduring the shame, torture and death of the cross taking on all the evil and sin of the world—seeing the JOY set before Him!
We really do have a great cloud of witnesses who testify that there can be joy in any situation, and we can look for good and for God as we go. I am not saying we are in denial of the circumstance, but we look for the greater reality that we are made for more and can find hope regardless of how hopeless it looks. There is the truth that we are suffering, but there is the greater truth that we get to share in the suffering of Jesus as He empowers us to do so and even brings joy in the middle!
If you are in a place today that feels joyless, hopeless and completely discouraging, ask Jesus for eyes to see the greater reality of His Life with you right now, bringing power, joy, hope and anything else you need.
Let this hope burst forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, but commune with God at all times. Romans 12:12