It happened.

The very thing you’ve been so afraid of.

What you’ve been praying desperately for to not happen.

What you’ve been bracing your heart for…because you know your heart will never recover.

The cancer diagnosis came back.

Your husband did leave.

The foreclosure notice has a date on it.

Your teen daughter is pregnant.

Your wife has been living a double-life.

Your son has been arrested. Again.

This is the day when every moment from this moment forward will be changed. Tainted.

There was your life before.

Now there is the uncertainty of your life going forward.

But right now you can’t even imagine going forward.

You can’t even imagine getting out of bed today.

You are feeling a level of pain you are not sure you will ever get through.

It is at this point I want to talk to you.

I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh.

Psalm 38:8-9

I just read to you a beautiful piece of the Bible as you cannot find God right now.

I didn’t do this to remove myself from your pain.

I didn’t do this to spiritualize your pain.

I did this because this is what I have learned.

When I can’t see God I look lower.

My big faith is now a smashed faith. But I hang in.

I scream at God. I cry. I become despondent.

It is in those moments that a knowing comes into my smashed heart.

I know God hears me.

I see my people doing whatever they can to show me God hears me.

I hear the lie that “I am all alone” and still know it is a lie.

I see a flower growing through a crack.

I see my beautiful grandbabies faces—and nothing creates more gratitude in me than my growing grandbabies.

I eat some very good food—often provided for by my people.

I hear these words from this Psalm whispered inside of broken me and I know they are true.

And I have hope.

I have learned hope.

Hope is not a feeling. Nor is it a wish or a prayer.

I have learned that hope is a function of struggle. And sheesh, am I struggling.

I have learned that hope is Hang On Pain Ends.

This horrible horrible time of my life will come to an end.

I have learned this.

My heart will recover. Bruised. Scarred.

But that scar is actually proof of a healing.

I know that I am healed as I am forever changed.

There is a before in my life.

And now there is this after.

Things are forever changed.

I am forever changed.

Somedays I wish for the simpler, more naïve me.

But there are more days that I see God closer and lower to me than God has ever been.

And I am grateful for this view of a bigger and lower God.