There’s a wheelchair parked in my parents’ dining room.

One I never thought my mom would need at age 60.

There’s a curly haired toddler sitting in it, smiling back at me.

He is a good and complex God.

I don’t know why God hasn’t healed Mom yet.

I just knew He would heal her last year at this time. A crowd of faith-filled family gathered in my childhood home to pray over Mom. Even more stood around her at church the next day while our Pastor preached a message on miraculous healing titled, When Pigs Fly.

I expected to see her walk out of her wheelchair that Sunday morning as we left church.

Today, she continues battling a disease that affects her autonomic processes and motor skills. She chooses Joy, and I hear her laugh as much as ever.

Miracles do not have to be instantaneous.

He is a good and complex God.

His mighty hand continues to reach into my frail moments.

He created the vastness of what we see and can’t see and cares enough about details to sustain our every heartbeat and breath. To cast Mom’s atrophy into the sea is nothing for Him. I continue to pray this over her. I can close my eyes and see Mom walking toward me.

We choose faith, even when our prayers sound the same, as if they’re bouncing off the ceiling. They’re not. They matter.

We pray boldly and persistently because this is what He tells us to do even when it feels bizarre.

Jesus tells us our faith moves mountains. We trust Him on this.

Today is still painful.

He is a good and complex God.

Until my late twenties, I’m grateful to say I never knew life-altering pain. Many carry far more traumatic pain that begins as early as childhood. I wish weighing my pain against greater pain made mine diminish.

And yet, God enters my pain in strange and uncanny ways that leave me shaking my head and whispering, surely You are a good God.

At the end of my rope last week, I stared out the sliding glass door, wondering who would help me in my desperate moment. A set of helping hands unexpectedly stopped by to visit.

His intervention in my heavy moments are repeated and only reaffirm He is my ever-present Help.

His love is loud in my pain.

I’m living my hardest season and my sweetest season in unison. The weight of grief, lightened by the joy of motherhood.

He is a good and complex God.

As we await a miracle for Mom, I feel the miracle of new life kicking inside me. Both point to Hope.

Because of Mom’s current condition, I often have to stop what I’m doing, lean toward her, and look her in the face to adequately hear her.

These are precious, tender moments.

He is a good and complex God.

The idyllic life that made up my first 30 years has changed, and I’m left yearning for something more.

Something far greater than all of this.

Because even the sweetest moments in life cannot fill our cups forever. Eventually, what once filled our cups—relationships, health, riches, success—will fail to satisfy.

And in this intolerable moment, we‘ll be left standing there, looking down at our empty cup, wondering if there’s something more.

There is.

God never wanted this broken existence for us.

He did not cause Mom’s condition. He is somehow using it for good. Even that is complicated to concede on this side of pain, though He’s shown Himself true.

I tear my Bible apart, wanting every tidy answer.

I read that this world has gone sideways, and an enemy hopes to ensnare us. I read that God is still in control. I read that He’s moved by our prayers. I read that He’s sovereign. I read that our faith matters.

I can’t seem to get my hands around how all of this shakes out.

But I can look you in the face and tell you I’m in more pain than I’ve ever been, and I’m in more Peace than I’ve ever been.

I never saw life going like it has today and yet I’m sure God has me exactly where I am today.

He is a good and complex God.

It’s hard to know where to put this.

Because the only place we can put this is in the hands of a loving God who has and will redeem this broken world, restoring it to the idyllic eternal state He’s always wanted for us.

Of course our cups run dry. Of course we’re thirsty. Of course we’re left looking down at our cup, wondering what else?

We see evidence of God’s goodness here, but if we only grasp at the good evidence, it will not satisfy.

Without Jesus, the good on earth is just an empty cup, hinting at more.

And there is more.

If our good God cares enough to work in the micro of my dark minutes, then I must induce He’s working in the macro, weaving together a story worth telling.

A story about so much more than this fleeting life.

There’s a wheelchair parked in my parents’ dining room.

One I never thought my mom would need at age 60.

There’s a curly haired toddler sitting in it, smiling back at me.

God is surely in this place, and He is good, and He is complex.

We pray Mom walks out of her wheelchair tomorrow. We still look for it.

And even so, there is so much more awaiting us in Christ Jesus, now and forever.

“[T]o him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” [Ephesians 3:20.]