Seeing Goodness Again

I sat with a friend recently who was walking through a season of disappointment and darkness. "I just don't know how much more I can take," she confided. I winced at her words, relating fully to the pain she was experiencing. Having walked through similar seasons in my past nearly unhinged me.

It was the end of what was supposed to be her forever. Now she found herself trying to survive the pain of the present, and with a heart that felt torn apart and stomped upon. Breakup's are rough, especially when we don't see them coming. It seems all hardships in life are more difficult when we are blindsided by them.

As I prayed for her later that day and reflected on her words, I remembered the words of King David in Psalm 27:13 (21st century KJV),“I would have fainted, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

The words of the Psalm were felt deeply. They were like a treasure I had buried in my heart from seasons past, experiencing my own painful break-ups.

I don't have to dig very far into my memory to recall the deep emotions from those times. Feeling like I could have fainted. Like I was close to losing my mind. When I could have despaired to the point of giving up. Would have laid down in my grief and not gotten back up. Might have waved the white flag of surrender to the enemy of my soul and said, “Okay, you win.”

In those times, I found myself at a turning point, just like there is a turning point in Psalm 27. It’s that climactic part where the reader is on the edge of their seat. The storyline has reached a pivotal point where something has to break, or the main character will be the one who breaks.

“I would have fainted unless…” Who knew a six letter word, unless, would turn everything around? That is, "unless" I had believed I would see goodness again.