My friend Christa has a baby named Joshua, and I have a pair of goats. Each will bring us to tears. Each has been God's crystal-clear message of an agonizing truth: Sometimes God does say yes. And even if He doesn't, we can still trust Him. We must trust Him. There's no other way to get good.
My friend Christa doesn't have a baby named Joshua. He's someone else's baby, a baby who lived when odds said he should die. A baby who lived when she thought she might have to walk the paths of grief with this mom, too. A baby who keeps on living. Whose name means "God saves".
The goats aren't mine, either. They're Ann Voskamp's daughter's goats. And I read their story first when I'd been parched for days, aching over the hope that I was scared to feel, doubting that God ever did anything good in a world with so much pain. I read the story of the missing goat, of the child's faith, and when the sky cried, broken over the beautiful gift of God to the trust this family persisted in, I broke, too, dumping out emotion held back for weeks, and I knew it in a way I wouldn't forget. I had to hope because there is a God who says yes, a God who does good. Until that God says "no", I'll hope for what He has said, for what I need, for what I continue to desire.
My friend Christa and I have hope. We have tears. We have loss. We have uncertainty. But we have a God who does good.
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