These were or might be circumstances beyond our control, circumstances that we find ourselves in, circumstances that we didn't choose or may be the result of bad choices. Life is full of discouragement and disappointment. We lose our ideals, let down by people who could have made a difference in our lives or in the world. Children who were full of so much potential are tormented by drugs and alcohol and haunted with feelings and thoughts about themselves and the world which make their lives almost unbearable. Elderly find themselves alone and hunger just to be touched.
Loved ones suffer needlessly, caught in a matrix of anger and greed and the inability to forgive.
Loved ones are ill. Loved ones are dying. Sometimes I really have my doubts. It's only because here and there in the world and now and then in myself is a new creation in this old and fallen world, sometimes visible, but certainly visible in Jesus who is the Christ. It's only because I have known personally and intimately, as well as witnessed in the lives of so many people, the power of God's grace at work in the midst of pain and suffering and confusion and chaos and death of this world.