The Strength You Never Knew You Had.

I know that not everything has a happily-ever-after. We do hurt, a lot. There are lifelong battles and unconquerable defeats and irreversible losses. There is, at times, unresolved tension that remains unresolved.

Yet our bold response to all these things can show a reservoir of strength we never knew we had. Our daily victories build scars that build stories that build bridges to broken hearts. Our boldness shows we don’t need to lose ourselves in loss, that we don’t need to fall apart when everything else does. The dark can make us more human, and not less. In our outright rebellion against apathy, we find a flash of divinity. We find a story better than the childish bleakness of tragedy, but instead the mature growth of comedy, where we have the humility to laugh at ourselves. We find hope in pain together. Maybe even the hope that there’s an ever-after. We don’t have to hope in solitude.

— J.S. from Mad About God