Let’s be honest. It has been the hardest year of our entire lives. I’m not even exaggerating. On top of the regular ups and downs of mission work, intervening in some lives of teens we work with, financially living by faith, we also lost our son Elijah, and the past months have not been without their trouble. Along the journey of asking “why” (a question that God’s been getting most of Earth’s history), I’ve found myself (numerous times) trying to remind God that we’re His friends. We don’t feel that God is the causation of our pain, but like anyone who goes through pain, the reality is that the Almighty, sovereign, Creator of the Universe allowed it, and could have stopped it. In our heads we know that there’s a big picture that we’re staring at with our noses up against, and being so close to (and in) the picture we lack the perspective of the painter who doesn’t seem to be panicked by our situation and is steadily working away with His brush. We commonly pray, “give us Your eyes”, but to really know what that prayer means, we have to know who He is, and to know who He is requires we abandon to the secret place of prayer (which feels dangerous in tragedy) and to cling to His Word (and truth). All intertwined, we realize that what God is doing is not only for a “bigger picture” but is actually for our good, though heartbreak is accompanied by a question mark. His silence in tragedy is often a mystery, and while we may not understand, we trust (though it takes all we have).

A song that the Lord brought back to my mind was sung by an artist named Ginny Owens called “If You want me to”. Ginny, who has been blind since childhood wrote the song after struggling to find a job after college. The lyrics say:

The pathway is broken
And The signs are unclear
And I don’t know the reason why You brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I’m gonna’ walk through the valley
If You want me to

 

Cause I’m not who I was
When I took my first step
And I’m clinging to the promise You’re not through with me yet
so if all of these trials bring me closer to you
Then I will walk through the fire
If You want me to

 

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that’s not my home
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I’d never go alone

 

So When the whole world turns against me
And I’m all by myself
And I can’t hear You answer my cries for help
I’ll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley If You want me to

 

And when I cross over Jordan
I’m gonna’ sing, I’m gonna’ shout
I’m gonna’ look into Your eyes and see that
You never let me down
So take me on the pathway that leads me home to You
I will walk through the valley if You want me to

“If You want me to” (from the album: The Best of Ginny Owens)

So, as we end another year, a year that we’re tempted to forget, we leave it knowing that it has shaped us more than any other year of our lives. We proclaim victory because we’re still standing. While remembering this year, for the rest of our lives, will probably draw tears, the Lord got us through it and we really are stronger…not because we suffered and survived, but because we trusted and learned how to hope when the tangible, outward appearances hollered doubt and despair. I guess the technical word for what we got out of it is: faith. Our story isn’t over. A part of the remarkable hope of our circumstance is that it is a brush stroke in the story that the painter is painting. Our lives are a masterpiece of His goodness, a magnum opus of His mercy.