Even if you were told.

"Look out at the nations and pay attention! Be astounded! Be really astounded! For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5

We are unstable creatures. As much as we want to believe and hope that we are less crazy than the next person, by and large we all have parts of us we fear being exposed. We are vulnerable. At times, we are afraid to trust in good things. To accept joy because we aren't sure where it's going to end up in the long run. We wrestle. We attempt to control, to brace ourselves for the fall we feel is inevitably coming.

I learned long ago that we aren't promised the life that we imagined. We aren't guaranteed the white picket fence, or whatever it was we were putting all our dreams into. In America, I think we hide this better. We have things that can mask our pain, that convince us that we are full and happy. We can pretend. Not always, but we can at least work at pretending, assuring ourselves that we are satisfied with what has been given to us. And I think at times we are. Sometimes we have been fighting so long to keep our head above water that when we can finally stay afloat, we think we have achieved our goal. So we go on floating, struggling to keep the waters from overcoming us once again.

We wonder where to hope. I have gone through seasons where I felt nothing but despair, where I seriously questioned the goodness of the God I claimed to believe in. I have seen so much pain, and at times it seemed that there were no answers that could ever account for the injustice I witnessed on the behalf of others. Eventually, I became so emotionally distraught by the prospect of such continuous suffering that I became severely depressed. Nothing made sense to me anymore.

These feelings hit me particularly hard as I worked in a classroom with children who had multiple disabilities. For some of them, life would never get easier. This was their world--doctors appointments, medications, endless therapies, death. To see them suffer was to feel the weight of everything this life was not meant to be. It was soul crushing. I was helpless. I became bitter towards God.

That was the longest year of my life, and it was only a portion of theirs. Despite my wariness, I kept questioning. Kept looking for hope. Kept wondering at the purpose of it all. For them, for me. To find meaning again.

Slowly, God answered.

And it wasn't all at once. I wrestled. I cried. I ate lunch in the closet. I prayed quite a bit. I asked God to show me where he was in the mess, in the unfortunate realities that seemed to be the only realities there were. He didn't answer directly, but in a very tangibly intangible way. He didn't change my circumstances or the circumstances of those around me. He changed my heart. He changed my perception. He allowed me to see the beauty and hope that was being created within myself and the lives of those courageous children. In the millions of moments we shared, good and bad, as we struggled through that year together.

They were my hope, and I was theirs.

They taught me to struggle well. Sometimes I would look into their eyes, and I would just know that God was peering back out at me. Tenderly. With great concern. And most of all with understanding. They understood. They knew. They loved me. On my good days, on my bad. They had patience. And I want to say I believe they had hope. Because they knew where to place it--not in their bodies or in their brains or even in their doctors. But in love. In strength. In the belief that while the things of this earth would pass away, their bright spirits would not. And so they lived.

And so did I. I came to realize that God does promise to be with us--not always in the ways that we want but most certainly in the ways that we need. He is there in our emotions. In our crazy moments, in the darkness that we are so afraid to peer into. And He sees our light. He believes in it so firmly, no matter how far the distance, and is willing us to look. To come and see our scars, because He is working even now to heal them. To know that though things may look broken and beyond repair, He is present and unwavering, standing in the gap until we are ready to believe in hope again.

There are no easy answers to suffering. To our own battlefields of the heart and mind. But if there is one thing I know it's that God does not deny the pain, but quietly and compassionately gathers it up into his arms, whispering new life and healing into that which we believe to be eternally damaged, until one day we look up and realize we have reason to hope. We have changed. We have found those things that are stable in the midst of instability, and they can never be taken away from us.

We have hope, are hope. And I would never have believed, even if I was told.