When tragedy stacks up—cancer, violence, injustice, suffering close to home and across the world—it can feel like despair is the only logical response. In a world scarred by sin and loss, we’re tempted either to be crushed by the weight of it all or to numb ourselves just to survive. But neither path leads to flourishing.

The Christian story offers something deeper. It teaches us to name brokenness honestly—to call evil what it is, to grieve what was lost in the Fall, and to refuse cheap optimism. Yet it also anchors that lament in hope. Because of the cross and the empty tomb, we do not grieve as those without a future. The resurrection of Jesus is the declaration that death and despair do not get the final word.

Whatever chapter of sorrow we find ourselves in, it is not the end of the story. Christ was crushed so that we would not be—and his resurrection promises that our tears, our faithfulness, and our labor are not in vain. Brokenness is real, but it does not have the final say.