Suffering & Hardship
We lost our home and nearly everything we owned. I do not know how to start again, or where God was while it happened.
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
Habakkuk spent his whole book arguing with God about injustice and coming disaster, and he ends it by imagining total ruin: no figs, no olives, no herds in the stalls. That is not a poetic flourish, it is famine. His conclusion is not that the loss does not matter. It is that he will rejoice in God even with every visible support stripped away.
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
At the close of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes two houses standing in the same storm. The rain and the floods hit both of them. He never promises the wise builder better weather, only a foundation that holds when the weather comes. For someone standing in the wreckage of what they built, that distinction is the entire point.
A path forward
List everything you have actually lost, including what nobody would put on an insurance claim: photographs, routines, the sense of being safe. Naming it makes the grief legitimate rather than embarrassing.
Accept the first three concrete offers of help you receive, even if you would rather not. People need somewhere to put their care, and refusing it isolates you at the worst possible moment.
Set aside ten minutes to pray about the day in front of you rather than the whole rebuild. Rebuilding is measured in years, and prayer works better in day sized pieces.
Closing verse
“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.”
- Deuteronomy 33:27
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