This is New Year’s Eve, a time to celebrate endings and beginnings, but my heart’s just not in it. Maybe yours isn’t either. If you’re one of them, or if someone close to you is, maybe this piece will land like a small reminder that the light is still there.
I know a handful of folks walking through hard seasons right now, and in the midst of these storms I keep hearing the same words rise up: conviction that God is still good, steadfast hope that refuses to quit, surrender that lays the weight down, and trust in the One who holds all things together for those who belong to Him.
In times like these, a song can slip in quiet and steady, saying what we need to hear without shouting. A few lines from U2’s “Song for Someone” have been on repeat in my head. The chorus especially feels like a plainspoken plea to hold on when everything feels raw and uncertain, to keep going even when you can’t quite see the path forward.
There’s this verse: “You got a face not spoiled by beauty / I have some scars from where I’ve been.” It’s two people looking straight at each other, one carrying marks from the road, the other seeing clear through them without flinching. Scripture meets us the same way. Romans 5 tells us that suffering does its patient work, producing perseverance, then character, then hope, poured into us by the Holy Spirit. Those scars aren’t the end of the story. They’re part of how God draws us into something truer.
Then this honest admission: “I was told that I would feel nothing the first time / I don’t know how these cuts heal / But in you I found a rhyme.” There’s awkwardness here, the uncertainty of stepping into new territory: love, faith, grief, whatever it is that leaves us unsure. Yet in the middle of the not-knowing, a kind of order appears, a rhythm we didn’t make ourselves. It reminds me of the way the Psalms move from lament to trust, almost without warning, because God is the one holding the meter.
Darkness is real. Scripture never pretends otherwise. But the same Book that acknowledges the night also promises the morning…
But the chorus is what keeps coming back: “If there is a light you can’t always see / … If there is a dark that we shouldn’t doubt / And there is a light, don’t let it go out.” That line lands like a hand on the shoulder. Darkness is real. Scripture never pretends otherwise. But the same Book that acknowledges the night also promises the morning (Psalm 30:5). The light burning in us doesn’t depend on our strength alone. John 1 says it shines because it belongs to Christ, and darkness can’t put it out.
All of this ties into the way storms form: warm, wet air running head-on into cold, dry air. The collision creates tension, pressure, turbulence. In the Christian life, that meeting can feel exactly like what’s going on inside. Mercy and truth colliding. Comfort and conviction. Grace and the hard edge of reality. Romans 7 is Paul living in that tension, wanting one thing and doing another. The meeting of those opposites doesn’t just make noise. It makes rain, clears the air, waters the ground. God built the world that way on purpose, it seems, letting opposing forces meet so life can keep going.
In Job, the storm is more than weather. Job cries out that the wind tosses him like chaff, and everything he counted on gets stripped away. Then, when God answers, He speaks right out of the whirlwind. Not to explain every loss, but to show who holds the storm in His hand. Those chapters full of questions about stars and seas and thunder remind us that the same power that sends the storm also sends the rain that makes things grow. Trials come, but they come under God’s eye, and Romans 8:28 still stands: He works them toward good for those who love Him.
The song ends with “I’m a long long way from your Hill of Calvary,” and it’s not despair talking. It’s a man measuring the distance and still walking, knowing Calvary already closed most of the gap. The same blood that satisfied justice is the mercy keeping us.
If you’re in one of those seasons right now, maybe sitting with a cooling cup of coffee wondering how the pieces are going to fit, these lines are for you. And if you know someone in the storm, maybe this is what they need to hear: the storm is loud, but it’s not the last word. The One who stills the wind hasn’t gone anywhere.
He’s keeping you.
That’s it for now. Thanks for showing up. It matters.
Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash
Veni, Vidi, Scripsi 