The Hope Still Remains

September 11, 2026

I have been reading a lot lately about our purpose here on earth.

Maybe it is because I am watching children suffer—not just one or two, but over and over again. I see families in the waiting, in the unknown, in the middle of things they never imagined they would have to walk through.

And sometimes, in the suffering, we wonder:

Why would a God who loves us allow us to stay here in this broken world? Why would He allow us to suffer for so long when we believe with our whole heart that He wants what is best for us?

These are hard questions.

And I don’t think there is always a perfect answer.

Christ’s purpose was not only to save us by giving His life for our sins. He also came to show us how to live. To love. To be kind. To share the Gospel. To reach the lost. To care for the poor. To do good. To tell people about the promise of the Kingdom of Heaven.

He brought hope into a broken world.

And holding onto hope in the middle of despair, defeat, fear, and darkness can be one of the hardest things we are ever asked to do.

But that is what Jesus gave us.

Hope.

Here on earth, we carry trials. Suffering. Fear. Anxiety. Grief. Burdens that sometimes feel far too heavy to hold.

And I truly believe He is the only One who can lighten that load. The only One who can give us strength when we have nothing left. The only One who can carry us through things we never thought we could survive.

Trials can bring us closer to God, or they can make us want to turn away.

I know which response I believe is right.

But I understand both.

I have seen pain so deep that it wrecks your soul.

Tragedy that changes the course of your life in one moment.

Loss that you will never stop carrying—you simply learn how to carry it differently.

And when you are standing in that kind of pain, it is easy to ask:

Why would a God who loves me allow this?

I remember when one of my daughters was little. She was probably two years old, learning to run and play outside. Every once in a while she would fall, scrape her knee, or scuff up her hands.

And she would look at me almost like she was asking, How could you let that happen?

She didn’t understand that I wasn’t allowing her to get hurt because I wanted her to hurt.

I was letting her be a child.

I was letting her run.

Learn.

Grow.

I couldn’t prevent every fall without preventing her from living.

Sometimes I wonder if there are pieces of our lives that God sees differently than we do. Maybe there are things He allows us to walk through because He sees what we cannot yet see. Maybe there is growth, purpose, dependence, or something eternal being formed in us that we cannot understand while we are standing in the middle of the pain.

But then I think about the really hard things.

Losing your child.

Losing your dad.

Watching someone you love with every part of your soul suffer and pass away, while knowing God had the power to save them here on earth.

That is different than a scraped knee.

And I don’t want to minimize that kind of pain with an easy explanation.

It is hard.

So incredibly hard.

Sometimes the why simply does not have an answer we can understand on this side of Heaven.

But the hope still remains.

Hope in Him.

Hope in His plan.

Trust that even when we cannot see what He is doing, He has not stopped working.

Trust that He can still bring good from things that never should have happened.

And hope that death is not the end.

That the person we love who knew Him is not lost.

They are with Him.

In a place without sickness.

Without fear.

Without pain.

Without goodbyes.

That is the hope.

For those who love Him and call on His name, He promises that He will be with us. He will rescue us. He will walk with us through trouble and ultimately give us salvation.

Maybe the rescue does not always look the way we begged for it to look here.

That is one of the hardest truths to accept.

Because we want the healing here.

We want the miracle here.

We want more years.

More birthdays.

More ordinary days with the people we love.

We want this broken world to stop being so broken.

Every single day, I wish the suffering would end—for the people I love, for the children I see fighting impossible battles, for families I know, for people I will never meet, and for people all across this earth.

I wish sin didn’t have such a grip on this world.

I wish sickness didn’t exist.

I wish death didn’t separate us.

I wish love won every single battle here.

But maybe that longing is part of the reminder that we were never created to believe this broken world is all there is.

There is more.

There is Jesus.

There is eternity.

There is restoration.

And there is hope.

Even when we don’t understand.

Even when we are angry.