These days, I am trying to form a new habit of looking for redemption despite a lack of resolution.

We live in a less-than-perfect world, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. It’s not hard to find disappointment or discouragement, both in the world as a whole and in our own worlds, the day-to-day realities we individually face.

In my story, the brokenness I am facing is infertility. For you, it might be unhappiness in a job, or a rocky marriage, or recent loss of a loved one, or a difficult move to a new city, or the weighty uncertainty of what the future holds.

And, perhaps even more difficult, these struggles reveal our lack of control in our lives. The inability to work hard and, as a result, make things okay is frustrating, especially in a society which communicates that hard work typically equals success – anything from a promotion in your job to a cleaner house to a skinnier version of yourself. There are so many tangible things that are successful as a direct result of our effort and our skills. But when it comes to the big life issues, it doesn’t work the same way.

So what do we do, then?

How do we deal with the dissatisfaction we face in life? How do we live in the middle of brokenness and find contentment in what we cannot change? How do we trust a God Who is able to cause change, but Who often doesn’t meet our expectations, since His ways are not ours and His thoughts are not ours?

If we really believe He is working all things together for good, but if we accept that we won’t understand His methods of bringing about that good, how can we find peace while still in the middle of the story?

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. –John 12:24

This paradox has grasped my attention. Death is not the end – death produces life. And not only does it produce life, but it has the potential to multiply life.

In this season of infertility, how can I see it as fruitful, yielding life despite the lack of such within my womb?

How can you reshape your perspective to see not just the trial in front of you, but what it is producing in you? How could this be part of God’s story, even if it’s not the storyline you hoped for?

And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4

Suffering and affliction is the beginning of the route to hope. Crapdangit.

Our God uses pain to produce hope, and as much as I kind of hate this process, I am learning that it is necessary. Without pain, why would we need a hope to cling to? If the world worked the way we wanted, would we long for the Lord? But as it is, we falter and faint until we lean on the Lord’s strength, finding our needs met in Him even when (especially when) they aren’t met by our tangible reality.

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. Joel 2:25-27

The locust has eaten the years – but the locusts were first sent by God. He gives locusts, then He gives relief and He gives life. How do we handle that He is the One Who both sends the locust and Who rescues us?

As of now, I am perhaps left with more questions than answers. But I have been pondering this concept for the past several months, and I want to find the life in the midst of death, the fruit in the midst of barrenness, and the hope that pain is producing in me.

It’s a beautiful absurdity, that God takes such an unlikely path, and while I confess being over the pain and the confusion, I am grateful that the brokenness doesn’t mean hopelessness. In fact, the more I find myself despairing over life circumstances, the more I am grasping for hope that deliverance is soon.

And in that grasping, I am gripping onto God instead of a change in my circumstances, as I more fully recognize His control and my lack thereof.