“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” -Agatha Christie

I am a blessed woman.
I am a grateful woman.
I love Jesus with my whole heart.
I am living an abundant, intentional life.

With all that said, though, my life – it seems to me – is harder than the average hard and has been more often than not throughout my adult life. (My friends and mother would agree.)

I am currently walking through yet another season of deep pain, brought on by several circumstances that I cannot put to words here. I have been filled with sadness, regret, and fear for well over a month now, and I cannot see if any of these circumstances are going to turn around.

I am living with a slight hopelessness regarding this life. I am living with an unhappiness regarding this life. I am living with a mild depression regarding this life.

But despite my current depression and anxiety – a fun mix, by the way – I have not stopped. I have not spent even one day in bed. I have done every single thing I am supposed to do as a functioning human and then I went on to do – hold on, let me look at my “moving forward to-do list” – an additional fifty things that aren’t in my normal day-to-day life in the past three weeks in an effort to jumpstart my heart and mind and body and work and relationships and sanity and life. Yes, 5-0.

(I do not tell you that to shame you if you are depressed or anxious and in bed today reading this. I tell you this to say that sometimes even in our pain, the next right thing is to make a list and then do something on that list even if we don’t want to do it and then check it off, because it will give you the courage to do the thing after that on your list.)

But I’ve been remembering some important truths.

You can be hopeless about this life (for a time) but not be without capital H hope. I think of Job. He lost everything. He was utterly despairing and yet did not lose his faith in God. It’s okay if I’m a Christian and I’m not happy. It’s not ideal, sure, but my unhappiness with my life circumstances doesn’t diminish my faith. I can hate my circumstances believing that things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be (because they’re not!) and still fully believe that God loves me and is with me and will bring good from all of this and that my happily ever after is coming down the pike not in the here and now but instead in the next sliver of eternity.

And that is where I am these days. My heart is breaking. My mind is riddled with anxiety.

But I have not lost hope in God’s love for me or in the truth that he will restore all things and make all things new and right and that all that is not truly lost, not for the believer in Jesus.

I have also not lost hope in the fact that I have all that I need today and that best as I can tell, I will have all that I need tomorrow, and that God withholds no good thing, and that those whom I love who are hurting are being taken care of by the same God who is taking care of me.

This life is a messy thing. My life is no exception. I don’t have it all together. In fact, I feel like I fumble through most days.

But somehow, it’s all going to be okay. I really do believe that. And I hope you do too.

If you’re in the same boat and could use some support, please join my new group, Hope & Healing.