On this Holy Saturday, I ran from a couple of heavy disappointments and pain to the refuge of a pasture. As I sit here watching the wind in the pines and the gray clouds move across the sky, I wonder when it will all be set right. When will the sun appear? When will it be okay? When can I finally exhale?

The world feels so flat sometimes. So much has gone wrong.

It feels like injustice and jeering. Those faces we read about in the gospels who gleefully called evil good are mirrored in those we see and read on our screens.

It feels hopeless. I was told today that though my writing content was ‘fine’, it is secondary to my tiny platform, and that the chance of achieving my publishing dream is small to none.

It feels endless. As I see dear people in my life struggle on the same hard roads with the same heavy burdens, I scan the horizon for help that does not seem to come.

It feels disappointing. Leaders in our church, country and world serve their own interest while the people stand slack-jawed and aimless. No one knows what to do next.

I’m having a hard time connecting to the presence of God. I pray but I don’t feel him. I’m listening but I don’t hear him. I’m looking but I don’t see him. It’s dull, listless, flat. It feels today like we’ll never turn the page and that we’ll trudge and slog through this hard, flat world until our steps are finally done. Today, when I long for dimension and color, I’m having a hard time with hope.

I’m not alone.

The disciples of Jesus had every reason for despair. All of their hope, all of their toil and much of their lives were wrapped up in this one man who was humiliated, tortured, and killed right in front of them. They likely wondered what would become of them and what the next days would bring, but at the same time there must have been painful, deep regret and questioning if they’d misspent their time and passion in the wrong places. I know what this feels like.

Maybe they struggled to remember the promises that were made, the things he said and did. Maybe they wondered if they’d misheard or misunderstood. They stretched their minds to conceive of a way that it might possibly be set right, but no earthly sequence of events could deliver them from the huddled, terrified, closed-off space in which they found themselves. They were trapped, and they needed a miracle. So do I, more than one.

The good news is that miracles do happen. There is a love big enough to encompass all of our pain and his name is Jesus. God is a God of rescue who enters in to our humanity to set things right. Saturday is pain, and I’m feeling the depths of that as I sit in this rainy pasture, but Sunday is coming. If you’re longing for resurrection as I am today, lets raise our faces together. On this in-between day, remember: He makes all things new. He is the only one who can.