From darkness, light?

When one has gotten to the light at the end of what feels like a dark tunnel, and finds relief, or release, or recovery, or redemption, one can say "from darkness, light," or "from rain, sun," or "from the night, morning."  The more you experience light, sun, morning, the more you build muscles for hard times--trusting there will be a day after.  That's a truth of life, enhanced by faith in One who we trust will reassure us of this truth--and even push it along when possible.  For sometimes that trust doesn't come easily, and we do need a little help from others--and even more from God.  I love testimonies from folks who've seen that, and know that, and can humbly describe that--not as if they're somehow chosen for the light, but in awe that they experienced it and want to help others experience it too.  All good.

But I don't think we should affirm this sentiment too quickly.  For to claim that hope needs suffering and so in all suffering there we can expect relief risks turning our faces away from so many people in our world (and in our lives) for whom the depths become holes from which they never emerge, for whom suffering in this life is unbearable, whose losses can't be absorbed in sentimentality or wishful promises, who will never get home (in this life).  

I honestly believe that the faith of Jesus is faith less in a "next, after" than faith in an "in, through."  In fact, as much as I do want to live with the confident knowledge that there is goodness coming--and so not take the worries or fears of the moment so seriously--I want a more profound trust to come first.  I want a more profound trust to fill the stuff of who I am and to texture my sense of life.  I want a more profound trust to come from, and so shape, how I follow Jesus.  That trust is a hope that in the middle of darkness there is light, that sun and rain coexist without cancel, that night and morning are of one day.  By this I mean that we're not waiting, but sensing God--even as we experience God's absence.  And that is the hope that gives us courage for the day, willingness to be honest about what is (even about ourselves), ability to see even deeper into what's wrong because it can't finally destroy us, to live with complexity and nuance even while we follow a simple call to love, to let go of grudges so we can live free and strong, and to be confident that while life will never be perfect or whole this side of eternity it is never forsaken by God (in and through, not just next or after).  

But I must admit that while I've experienced this kind of trust tested, for sure, I've not experienced the very deepest or most tragic of tests (yet).  So I rely on testimonies of those who have, and who still claim truth, trust, realistic faith, and courage to love.  I rely on people who refuse to be enemies of those who see them as enemies, who refuse to give into despair when circumstances tell them they should, who refuse to say the endings we experience now are the endings of time--not because they assert themselves, but because they receive love from their Creator and let that make them.