"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.'" (Romans 4:18)

The darkest stretch of my life came after more than a decade of hoping for children. My thirties were quietly slipping through my fingers. One afternoon, my husband sat me down and gently asked me to move on. He'd made peace with our childlessness and found a way past the pain. He wanted that for me too.

The problem was, I had no idea how. I'd held onto the hope of a family for so long that I knew something in me would snap if I let it go. I felt a lot like Abraham—clutching a promise, stranded in a wait that stretched on year after year.

A dear friend walked closely with me through that season. She's a realist, and she pushed me to start the biblical practice of lament so I could finally process the weight I was carrying. To lament is to pour out your disappointment, anger, grief, and sorrow straight to God. It's getting real and holding nothing back.

It feels almost unthinkable to bring our darkest complaints to the Creator. But that kind of honest wrestling is all over the Psalms. David laid his grief bare before God constantly—and he was still called a man after God's own heart.

Because my friend wouldn't let it go, I finally grabbed a pen and my journal. I wrote page after page about the ache of being childless and the agony of the wait. Getting all that darkness out of my heart and onto paper was strangely freeing.

And here's the odd part. At the end of nearly every entry, I found myself writing a declaration of trust. Something like, I know God is good, and I know He still has a future for me. I never planned it. But after honestly wrestling with God, my soul kept finding its way back to His faithfulness.

One day my friend sent me a text: "Death always leads to resurrection for those who know Jesus… ALWAYS!"

Looking back, I finally understand what happened in those tear-stained journaling sessions. My natural hope died.

It was awful. Painful. The earthly hope I'd clung to for years died right there on the page. But just like my friend's text promised, a resurrection followed. When my natural, human hope collapsed, a supernatural hope was born in its place. Through all that mourning, a deep, settled awareness of God's goodness took root in me.

This is the exact shift Abraham went through. Paul says it in Romans 4:18: "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…" The Amplified Bible captures it beautifully—when every human reason for hope was gone, Abraham still hoped in faith. And eventually Isaac was born, fulfilling the promise and carrying the lineage that would bring us Jesus.

Our story found its own fulfillment too. In the winter of 2017, after natural hope had died and supernatural hope had carried us, we welcomed our daughter, Lily.

God's faithfulness shines brightest right where our own strength runs out. He doesn't promise every earthly outcome will match the script we wrote. But He does promise to bring new life and supernatural hope out of the places where we've fully surrendered.

So check your own heart for a moment. Are you carrying hidden hurts you need to get honest with God about? Bring the pain to Him. Name the places where your natural reasons for hope have collapsed, and ask Him to birth a stubborn, supernatural hope right there in the rubble.

A Few Honest Questions:

1. Is there a grief you've been managing quietly instead of pouring out honestly before God?

2. What might God be waiting to resurrect in a place where your own hope has already died?

3. When you lament, do you tend to stop at the pain—or do you let it carry you back to His faithfulness?