Real Hope: Uncertainty & DoubtSample

A Clear View

The train rocked in a rhythmic sway as I watched the ground speed past. I knew this journey well…the footbridge…followed by the station….now the houses with unhidden backyards that made you feel like a prying neighbor…the tree with the vine covering it…the pretty wildflowers that grew beside the tracks…another station…

My eyes greeted them like an old friend. Memories were wrapped around these familiar markers of a time where my doubting mind and wounded heart would ask them repeatedly if God really cared? Did he see me? If he did, why did he allow the pain?

Was He really a good God?

Was He even real?

They never answered. They would just show up at the same time, same place, the next day. Consistent.

Each day I asked them the same questions. Each day their response was the same.

Now, years have passed, and this view has remained relatively unchanged although I am not the same. My eyes now see them differently. They had appeared to be the consistency in my life when my heart could not conceive of a loving God. But in their consistency, I see it was God who was consistent, not the view. In those darkest moments, God was as consistent as the rhythmic sway of the train. He lovingly showed up each day and sat with me in the pain and fear, allowing the doubts to be aired. And as time progressed, much like the blurring tracks I watch now, He healed what was broken. And because of those doubts, I now see clearly.

Written by NERI MORRIS