There are tons of encouraging verses in scripture.  Perhaps one of the most well known is found in Jeremiah 29:11:

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’

The danger with this verse and many others like it, is that taken out of its context it can come across to those who are struggling, overwhelmed and brokenhearted as sweet, nice, and childishly naive about the dark and hard things of life and irrelevant to the reality of their struggle and pain.

But God didn’t send this message to the people of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah when everything was sunshine and rainbows.  This message came to a people who were living a post-apocalyptic reality unlike anything most people alive today in the modern West can imagine.  All was not sunshine and rainbows but darkness and despair.

It was in that absolutely crushing darkness that God spoke this message of hope.  He told a people who could not lift up their eyes that the light of hope was shining even if they couldn’t see it at the moment.

Through Jeremiah, God was offering the hand of hope in a time and to a people that needed it most.

Today, God is holding out that same hand to you.  May you trust that the light of hope is shining, even if you can’t lift up your eyes to see it.