Sorrow is such a mile marker. 

I remember freezing up at the sight of an ultrasound screen showing my wife and me that a pregnancy had ended in loss. 

I still vividly remember the gut-wrenching shock when our pediatrician diagnosed one of our children with type one diabetes. 

I feel physically sick and can easily shed tears thinking about the afternoon I told my daughters someone they knew had been killed in a school shooting. 

I can picture every graveside of friends and family I’ve stood by. 

I’ll never forget any of those moments and many more like them. The worst things in life stay with us... like cursed waypoints we never wanted. 

Followers of Jesus can disagree about a lot of things, but one thing we implicitly agree about is the worst thing that has ever happened: the cross. The Creator and Sustainer of all things came to Earth out of love to redeem mankind and renew creation. To give of Himself. And how do His image bearers respond? They put Him to death in the greatest tragedy of justice the world has ever known. 

Across a spectrum of sadness, the cross stands as a far boundary. Surely, nothing more vile has ever happened than perfect love and innocence dying in shame for the rebellious and guilty. Holiness given to death for the unholy. It was such a horror that Paul says by itself there is no hope in the cross. 

But thankfully, the cross was not alone. It is bookended three days later by the greatest thing to ever happen: an empty tomb. Like a plot twist in a movie, the empty tomb makes us rethink everything we’ve seen up to that point. It’s the great reversal. The recasting of a great evil. Now we look back at the cross, and it is anything but purposeless. Anything but senseless. It was worth it. A risen Jesus turned the most evil day in history on its head. 

What then does that mean for my greatest hurts? The deepest wounds I have suffered in a broken world? The ones that threaten to crush all hope? I know they all fall within the boundary of the cross. Most of the time I don’t fully know how. I can’t fully know in this moment.

But I have seen little shadows of how that can work...hard things in my life that seemed like nothing but loss and pointless. And yet somehow, eventually, some kind of undeniable good comes from it. Even in spite of it. A frail seedling of hope and good can grow out of the muck.

One day, I believe we will know. Fully. As C.S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce, "both good and evil, when they are full-grown, become retrospective … Heaven, once attained, will work backward and turn even that agony into glory." Therein lies hope, because evil doesn’t ultimately rule. Suffering may mark the road, but it doesn’t seal the destination… new life does.

Contributed by: Kevin Perry


Reflection:
After reading, take a few minutes to write out today’s verse by hand (see below). Open your heart and mind to invite the Spirit to speak to you through the text. As you write, highlight or underline the words or phrases you feel Him drawing you towards. Then, take a moment to reflect on why these particular elements stand out and how they speak to your current circumstances. Allow these insights to guide your prayer and meditation as you seek deeper understanding and connection with Him.
 

Scripture:

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”