Are you feeling down and out? Do you feel scattered, smothered, and covered in the trials of this life? Are you mourning because you have suffered a great loss? Are you captive and ensnared by the affairs of this world?

Sometimes it can seem that all we do is go deeper and deeper into a pit, as though life’s storms rain down on us, and there is no escape. We may feel that we are so broken that it seems too hard to carry on. Maybe all your dreams have come crashing down, and they have died in an ash heap of despair.

While all these situations are extremely painful and devastating, only those who have been in our place and walked a mile in our shoes, can really taste of the affliction. While it seems we are in a dark place, there is still hope. Perhaps we are just seeds, planted in the rich soil of God’s Kingdom, for His future purposes. Perhaps we are just little acorns going through the death of our tough exterior kernels. Perhaps the brokenness is just the sprouting of something much bigger than we could have ever imagined. Perhaps God has a plan, one that we do not understand.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)