I walk around, sometimes the view is breathtaking, other-times I just don’t know how to go on. The sights seem terribly unbearable. The trials and sufferings are great and many. It’s incomprehensible when a 5 month old dies suddenly, or when after six months a baby dies in the womb, or a son just 25 years old is found in an accidental death. Questions so complex and so numerous begin to consume all too easily. Why and what if overtake my thoughts. The path becomes dark and gloomy. It’s harder to lift my feet. In the midst of my stumbling I come across a billboard, high and lit brighter than any other, as if strategically placed for me to see. It reads, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” My view becomes brighter, nothing around me has changed, but I am reminded that there is a greater purpose and a great God, bigger than the suffering, the sadness and the pain. He offers hope and peace that outweighs the questions and the fear. He offers love. He is love. The things I see, while I may grieve them, they are not so unexpected and not without a purpose.