Realistic hope runs deeper than any hurt. It can take the same experience and offer a different script, a different outcome, a different meaning. Deep hurt so easily gets infected — by mistrust, or fear, or rage, or callousness, or avoidance, or addiction, or…. Hurt even gets infected by just trying to keep yourself busy and distracted. It turns inward. It turns self-destructive. But hurt and loss can become transmuted into a deeper good — still fierce, still sorrowing, but now clean. Not only clean, but hopeful. Not only hopeful, but fruitful. Not only fruitful, but wise. Not only wise, but even loving.
David Powlison















