We create our best music and write our best books in the middle of the most painful seasons of life. David wrote passionate Psalms in his most devastating moments of personal struggle. Something takes place in us during those times that exposes the fake salesman aspect of our faith and reveals the lies we fell for in a moment of impatience that led us to a place despair.

We think nothing good dwells in our pain, but that is where revelation is the clearest because it is no longer diluted by the false promises that got us into trouble in the first place. In our pain, we walk with our head down looking only at the pavement right before us. Pain is myopic. In these times we can walk right past blessing and provision and never see it. We become metronomic in our life-stride taking only one hopeless step after another. We abide with the pain as our only traveling companion. The journey becomes filled only with the expectation of more sorrow.

Today, in the middle of a never-ending grind of sameness; in a place where everything bad happening feels like it is your fault; in a place where you gave up so long ago that you cannot remember what life was before that fatal resignation – look and listen. Look for the hand of God. Listen for His voice.  He has not walked away from you. He has been walking beside you all along the way, but you thought you were alone. He wants you to hear His words of affirmation and feel His touch of love. He has been whispering hope, but you listened only to the sour voice of pain. He has reached out, but you moved away. Your sorrow and grief are about to undergo a transformation and release an assignment you never thought possible.

You will craft a song. You will write a book. You will create a testimony. These will be your best messages. They will contain the kind of hope that will tell the rest of us the best is yet to come.