Faith Chang wears more than a few hats. She serves at Grace Christian Church of Staten Island, where her husband is a pastor. She’s also the mother of four children. She has a Certificate in Christian Studies from Westminster Theological Seminary and writes at Keeping Heart.
To talk about her faith and writing journey, SOLA Network’s Aaron Lee interviewed her via Zoom. She shares her salvation testimony, as well as her beginnings as a blogger. They also discuss how she sees God in her daily life and how she shows his grace and presence through her writing. We hope you are blessed by this conversation and learn to see God in your stories as well.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors. You can listen to the audio here.
Aaron Lee: Hey everybody, this is Aaron. I am the Social Media Manager for SOLA Network. And today, we’re going to talk with Faith Chang. Faith, would you please introduce yourself for us?
Faith Chang: Yeah. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks for having me. My name is Faith. I am in Staten Island. I am a mom of four. And that’s pretty much what happens and fills most of my days. I’m married to Jeff, who’s a pastor here on Staten Island. We serve at a Chinese church with Chinese and English speaking congregations. And when I have time, when I’m not at work, I mean, it’s not home, (which is work, I guess), or ministry, I’m also working part time at a bookstore and also studying part time now. And when I’m not doing those things I write.
Aaron Lee: I know you from your writing. I knew about your background, just from your blog bio. And you said all those things. Your blog is called Keeping Heart or the Keeping Heart Blog. And on your bio, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 was your verse that you mentioned. Faith, why is this verse special to you? And would you mind sharing your salvation testimony with us?
Faith Chang: Yeah. So I think I’ll start with the second part first. I grew up in the church, and so that is a blessing that I grew up going to church with my parents and grew up in a believing home. And understood and heard the gospel clearly for the first time—I think I was like, eight or something like that—and believed.
I think that what really marks what I think of as my faith journey is… I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the book Gospel Wakefulness by Jared Wilson, but he used a term like wakening to the Gospel, and I think that’s what happened to me.
So he gives an illustration of this person, if you’re driving and you get stuck on a railroad track, and you’re trying to get out of the car and then somehow it works again, or someone rescues you. I don’t know how you get out of it. And that relief that you feel, you know, is kind of like understanding the gospel and accepting it. But then thinking about the experience of, if you open the trunk or the back door and you found out one of your kids actually snuck onto the car. And then that second wave of “wow, this is what I was saved, what I was rescued from.” And so I think that was my experience probably in high school and college, really waking up to the gospel, as someone who believed it but to really see the depth of my own sin, to really cry out to Jesus for that rescue.
I think up until then, I thought that salvation was something that you got and then now you have to obey and now you have to do the right things. And it’s not like I would have said I wasn’t a sinner—of course I was a sinner— but I don’t think I felt the depth of it until the end of high school, beginning of college when I really started asking some harder questions about what does it mean to know God?, what does it mean to love God?, am I even really a Christian?, how could I have been so messed up and been a Christian all this time? Until just a breaking point in college of coming face to face with God and being like, God, I don’t believe that you could love me. You know, I’m so messed up.
And at that point, I really remember clearly, just in my mind’s eye, seeing the cross. And then in my heart, hearing the Holy Spirit, be like, “Hey, you don’t believe that I love you? This is how I showed it, while you were a sinner, I died for you.” Which is the gospel which I had known, but to know it deeply, that was kind of the transforming, understanding moment.
Aaron Lee: You said this was around college. Is that what you said?
Faith Chang: Yeah, so the end of high school, I think I started being like, “God what should I do with my life? What do you want?” And then God wouldn’t give me the answer that I wanted. He’s like, “I want you to know me and love me.” And I grew up in church, but I don’t know what that means. So as I started reading the scriptures more and starting to seek God in prayer, and seeing my own, coming closer to his light, seeing my own sin in that. It was like a one year process, I think, or more of God just shining a light on my heart to make me desperate for his rescue.
Aaron Lee: Thank you for sharing that with me. I feel like I know some of your life because of what you write on your blogs and in your articles. But I’ve never heard—or never read—your salvation testimony before. So I feel like I know you a little bit better now having heard that.
What I want to do today is I want to talk about some of your articles, and also ask you some questions regarding those articles. I know you primarily from SOLA. And I remember this distinctly. The first article I read from you was “Three Reasons the Church Needs Asian American and Other Minority Voices.” I remember it because I think that’s when I first started, like, doing stuff for SOLA. And your article is one of the first that I read. I was like, oh, yeah, this is good. This is what I want to do, and what I want to help out with. You wrote a lot of things in there.
But what stood out to me was this quote. You said, “Brothers and sisters, as God’s people, we are stewards. Asian American Christians, your experiences have been entrusted to you by God. God has sovereignly assigned our struggles, strengths, and perspectives not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of His kingdom.” And this, this sentence right here: “Forged in the heated pressure of living between two cultures are divine gifts. May we steward them gratefully and purposefully for God’s glory in his church and in the world.” And that really spoke to me, that sentence.
And I want to ask you, if we could go a little bit deeper, personally, for you, about your writing and blogging journey. How did you get started in sharing your stories and finding your voice? Especially, you know, from that Asian American perspective?
Faith Chang: Yeah. So I think there’s a simple answer in terms of when I started sharing my stories. It’s because I think I always have in different ways. One of my convictions and just kind of core things that drive me in relating with people and in ministry, and just in life is that God’s given me a desire to be a testimony, to share my testimony. And not necessarily just in terms of salvation, but of what God is doing in my life so that people can be encouraged. And I think because I have felt so deeply, “God could you save me?, “God, could you ever use me?”, you know, all these things.
And during those times, during that time, God really spoke to me through Paul saying I’m the worst of sinners and God saved me, the worst of sinners, so that he could basically be a testimony of God’s patience. And so my heart has always been like God, can you please, please use my life so that people can say, “God, if you can do something in her life, you can do something in my life. If you could even work in her life or through her or in her, then you can do that with me.” So that’s always in my heart in sharing my life with my younger sisters or with other people. Have you ever heard of Xanga or had a Xanga?
Aaron Lee: Yeah, I know Xanga. I don’t remember if I had a Xanga or not.
Faith Chang: That was during my time. That is what people had– it was kind of like social media blogging. Instead of likes, you got eProps. Got one or two. Or if like people wanted to do thumbs down you got zero. And so anyways, everybody had a Xanga. That’s where I wrote about, oh, like Gilmore Girls, I love so and so or, cryptic messages about your crush.
But then as God worked in my life, I think as I started just moving from there as God worked in my life, it was just like, “oh, let me share about what I’m learning from God. This is what God’s doing! He’s so great!” From missions trips, or from my testimony of walking through what he brought me through in terms of despair and hopelessness to gospel light. Then from there, my friend, actually, yesterday, she reminded me that I think it was 2008, where I sent out an email to her saying, I started a blog, just to share. I think the literal words were “just to share what God is teaching me.” And from there, just blog, not quite journals, but things that I thought could be helpful to other people because God was working in my life. This is what he was showing me and this is how it intersected with the life I was living.
And that’s something that I’m passionate about because so much of my life I’ve experienced turning points due to understanding truths of God. That connection between orthodoxy and orthopraxy and doxology, the right thinking and right understanding of God, how that affects how you live and how that affects how you worship. That’s something that I have experienced, and so I wanted to be able to share that with other people.
As I shared that, people started encouraging me about it. And so I think that was just like, “Thank you for writing that,” or people that I didn’t think read it, read it. Or people that I didn’t know, read it because somebody shared it with them. And so in that way it was really kind of straightforward. In other ways, it hasn’t been in that I never thought of myself as a writer.
I actually really didn’t like English in high school. I don’t like writing papers. Maybe I was just lazy, doing it last minute in the computer lab. But I didn’t think of myself as somebody who was good at writing. I just did it. Because you talk, everybody talks, but not everyone is a speaker. So I wrote, but I didn’t think of myself as a writer. And I think as I got more and more feedback, and as I realized, I really enjoy doing this, it kind of became a big question mark of, “what is this in my life?” You know, what is it? Is it a hobby, because there’s actually a cost to actually sitting down and trying to write and I felt like I had to justify it somehow.
And so with that, I think where God met me in that was through people around me, really just encouraging me to be like, “Hey, you’re gifted in this,” or, “Hey, you’re a writer.” Or even just my husband being like, “Hey, make time. I’ll make time for it.” There are four kids, it’s hard to justify, when you have four kids and little ones, how can I justify spending time not with them? Or asking my husband to take on more things and him being like, hey, you go write? Because I started getting kind of antsy, wanting to just work out the things that I was thinking about, things that I was learning.
So I got in touch with some of the people at Reformed Margins, who I wrote with, and they were just such encouragers. They literally gave me courage to write. It’s not just about whether or not it’s good, but is this helpful? Is this edifying to people? And then from there getting feedback from people, who would say, “this really helped me,” That’s what keeps me writing, and that’s what amazes me about writing.
Aaron Lee: Going back to your Xanga days, it seems like you just wanted to share. You wanted to process what you were learning and put it into words and get it out there to encourage other people, and it sounds like you got encouraged in return. It sounds like a really organic process, but also very DIY because you were like, “Okay, I’m just gonna put it out there and see what happens.” I know the internet was a lot different back then. But I’m glad that you didn’t just stay on Xanga. And you started writing for Reformed Margins, SOLA, and TGC. I’m so thankful that you have this origin story of yourself as a writer, because you’re saying you didn’t see yourself as a writer. But clearly, you wanted to put words down, you wanted to put it out there. To me, that just sounds like okay, you were a writer, you just didn’t want to admit it.
Faith Chang: Someone who is a writer and a counselor said that writing is the way that he worked out his salvation with fear and trembling. And so I think that is basically what it’s been for me. Writing has been a way of working out my salvation. Where things that God is not just teaching me, I’m learning every day, but things that are really shifting, like paradigm shifting, and things that I need to wrestle through that are just floating around in my mind and in my heart. So many times as I’ve wrestled with those onto not paper, but onto, laptop or whatever, they’ve actually marked moments where– there have been moments where I’ve been like, I haven’t struggled with this since. Not that that’s what writing is supposed to do, but they’re kind of like Ebeneezers in some way for me.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, absolutely. There’s like a date and a time stamp on it. So totally.
Faith Chang: And I think part of the surprise is because for Xanga, or even when I started a blog after Xanga before my blog now, like Blogspot or something. Those were pre-social media days where there weren’t metrics, so it wasn’t like who’s reading it? Who’s liking it? Maybe eProps, like three people like it. My friends gave me eProps. So that’s why it surprised me so much that people were reading it. Like, you read that?
Aaron Lee: Well, I don’t know what perspective you had when you were writing in your Xanga. But if it was similar to what you have now, or where you’re talking about Asian American and womanhood, then I think it totally would have resonated with a lot of people.
Faith Chang: It was more just on Gilmore Girls. Veiled references to people that I liked, so…
Aaron Lee: That counts. I think that still speaks to people. You’re putting yourself out there, and people are relating to it. And I think that’s what matters. I want to talk about Reformed Margins, and the article I want to talk about is “Learning to Grieve Anti Asian Racism as an Asian American.” And I think what you were saying here, is that you were processing your lack of grief during that time period. What was it like growing up as an Asian American? And what is it like in Staten Island, New York? Because I know absolutely nothing. And before we do that I want to say thank you, just for the record. I want to say thank you for making the time to do this, because it’s like, I’m eating into your dinner time right now. And so I’m thankful for you making the time.
Faith Chang: It’s my pleasure to be here. So growing up as an Asian American, I think, when I think about that question, it’s kind of like, “what’s it like growing up as you?” It’s hard to answer because I don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s kind of like when people ask my husband, “What’s it like, being a pastor’s kid?” Because he’s a PK too. He’s like, “I don’t know. I don’t know any other life.” And so growing up as an Asian American, I had spaces where I was with other Asian Americans.
And so because of that, my experience didn’t feel different even though all the time you know that it’s different. I don’t know if that makes sense. Like, you know it’s different. You know you’re not the majority culture. You know that you could speak another language. You know that sometimes people are mean to your parents because they’re immigrants. I’m a second generation. Like, you know, that that happens. You’re out there, and somebody makes jokes about you. That happens.
That’s what it was like for me, but I didn’t feel so lonely or isolated because I had the Chinese church, because I had Asian American friends. I went to a school with from 7th to 12th grade where there are a lot of Asian Americans. And so we found our own spaces in that way. I grew up in Staten Island, but didn’t really grow up on Staten Island, because I only went to school here for one year, which actually was probably the one year where I felt most different. Because growing up on Staten Island there weren’t very many Asians on Staten Island. Now, it’s actually the fastest growing population on Staten Island I heard.
Staten Island is an outer borough of New York City. On the subreddit, I think they call it “The Forgotten Borough” because we have a complex – like “forgotten.” And it’s the place where growing up, I didn’t actually say that I was from Staten Island. “I’m from Staten Island but I go to school in the city. I don’t really know Staten Island.” And so that’s basically what Staten Island was like. It is where a lot of people wanted to get out of.
My husband, he grew up, grew up on Staten Island, and he went to school here and growing up that’s where people want to get out of. It’s kind of like a big small town. There are half a million people here, so it’s not very, very tiny, but it is an island. And so it’s something that I’ve grown to love in terms of ministry here, in terms of opportunity to be in a local church in a city, but also a small town where you’ll run into people at Costco or Trader Joe’s.
But growing up, there weren’t very many, and actually, still like, we’re the minority. And there are a lot of stories that people from our church and my husband, and even as adults, of racist encounters. So when I wrote that article, I was thinking about the fact that it had been something that I’ve been so used to. So used to kind of as part of the background of life, that I never really felt the need to feel sad about it. Not that I would never feel mad about it.
I shared about how when my daughter, even somebody said to her, “I hate Chinese girls” or something like that, I was trying to work with her almost right away through the forgiveness part. Because kids say things like that, but the hard thing about that was the parent wouldn’t deal with it. And so she was wrestling with “How come she won’t say sorry?” Not like, “Why did she say that?” But, “How come she’s not apologizing?” And so I was dealing with her on that end, rather than even thinking that is a reality of our fallen world that we need to grieve.
It was a lot of working through that grieving aspect, but also just the aspects of being different and what we bring to the table as Asian Americans, I think only as an adult now, actually being in more spaces that are not Asian American, have I been able to see more of those difficulties, but also the strengths that we bring. Like, that’s not just a thing—that is something that’s unique to our culture. That’s unique to the gifts that God’s given us. Or sometimes even being in the spaces online.
I guess for the theological tradition of Reformed (SOLA and for myself too) where I’m reading about those spaces, and being like, that’s just very different than my experience. That’s not what we wrestle with. That’s not what I learned growing up. That’s not the correction that I need. Like, all these writings for women or for motherhood, and just being like, I don’t relate because I never heard of
I remember someone writing, “We think that God is like Santa.” I’m like, I’m pretty sure I never really thought about it like that. Like “my grandfather who gives you hugs” and I’m like, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what I grew up with. That’s not the correction that I need. Or like, even just even thinking about evangelicalism. I can get so into Twitter and I’m reading it, and I’m like, “Oh, yeah!”
And then I step back and I’m like, I never even thought of myself as an evangelical honestly, because I never heard of that term growing up. I was a Christian. I grew up in the church, I knew what Protestant and Catholic was, but in the Chinese churches, that’s just not what’s happening. We had our own struggles that need to be spoken into and as well as our own gifts that I think SOLA and other platforms like Reformed Margins, they’re what we bring to the table, bringing to the wider conversation, some of those gifts. And at the same time, what I appreciate is also speaking to our communities the things that we actually need.
Aaron Lee: I totally agree with you. And I think we talked about this off this podcast, but I think that the need for nuance is important. But sometimes that’s hard to articulate across one article. And I appreciate you giving your background here.
Because with that Reformed Margins article, it’s very specific to your experience. Although you can still write and reach a broad audience, because the event is such world-shaping event. But each author has their own perspective and the way that they process it. And so you have to write it broadly enough so people can read it, but also nuance it enough where you’re able to say this was my experience. And I thought that you did a great job in that article, because I knew that like, okay, obviously, you’re processing this a lot different than other people. But you’re still writing in such a way where the people that are able to relate to the entire situation can see where you’re coming from and what we can still learn from it. I just really appreciated that article.
We should keep moving on. But you kind of already talked about some stuff that I want to hit on. The next article I want to talk about is for TGC. And this one is “Common Trials Are Still Trials.” You wrote this back two years ago, December 2019. And your point in this was that God cares and uses common hard things. And when you say hard things, I think you specifically mentioned the morning sickness of your pregnancy, the temptation of distracting yourself with a screen. And then being reasonable and being patient.
And you mentioned you didn’t think there was so much pride and judgment lurking in your heart just from these common experiences that we all… okay, not all of us because I’m not pregnant… but that people can relate to because they’re common. But they’re hard in the sense where yeah, they challenge us. And so, these topics of motherhood and family, I think that you do such a great job writing about those things. And so I wanted to ask you, what is it about motherhood and family that makes you write and helps you see God in it? How does that perspective get into your writing?
Faith Chang: I think two ways. One is that’s where my theology is tested, because that’s where I am. It’s kind of like “contextualization-lite.” It’s not cross-cultural, but I studied at seminary, and I have a heart for ministry, and before getting married I worked on staff at a campus ministry and I was really involved in global missions. So I think my practical theology, how I lived, was formed through those things.
And I think motherhood really tested it, and I think motherhood showed ways and continues to show ways in which my practical theology (which is actually theology) needs to be stretched and grown, and where it’s weak.
So for example, being in college and after in campus-like settings where you’re like, okay, this is about reaching the world. This is like what God gave us a heart for, to reach the world through these means, through discipleship, evangelism, through missions… and now you’re at home, and you can’t do anything! And you’re just changing diapers! And, what’s the point of my life then if life is about making disciples and people don’t know Jesus yet, right? And so, does she have to become a missionary because I’m changing her diaper? Is that why my work is meaningful? Does that really make sense that I have to be able to measure my success, or fruitfulness in these ways in the Christian life to be a faithful Christian?
So I think through that, like really wrestling for me and coming to understand the doctrine of vocation. Luther’s doctrine of vocation and understanding that God feeds us through the milkmaid, or the way that God answers our prayers, in love for neighbor through our love for neighbor. And something like that, where God really shifted in me what it meant to live life pleasing to Him… in this certain way, it has to look this way to be like, Hey, your theology is lacking, because it cannot apply to you right now. And to be like, Why is the greatest commandment, the greatest commandment? And that has then from there, affected other parts of how I see ministry and how I see life or how I encourage others to live, and how I want to live. Love God, love neighbor, oh, that’s what that means. That’s what life is about, or that’s why it’s the greatest commandment.
That’s what motherhood, and I think that’s what being crosscultural does too. Can my theology, can my understanding of what it means to live a Christian life here, does it apply here? And if not, then it really isn’t what I think it is. And so motherhood has been that for me in one sense. In another sense, I guess the bigger sense, it just is my life and so that’s where I experience trials, that’s where I experience joy and grace. And from there, I write what I know and I testify to that.
Aaron Lee: It just sounds like this should be an easy answer, like, this is your life. But I feel that you’re exceptionally gifted because you’re able to get these seemingly mundane things, like changing diapers, and finding God in it, or finding some sort of theological truth in the things that we do in our daily lives.
Your most recent article on your blog was titled “Your Achingly Beautiful Perseverance.” And you said that it’s the intersection of storytelling and deep reflection, and the invitation to walk the landscape of the memory through well-crafted vignettes. And then the masterful woven themes that slowly emerge, the best ones simultaneously awaken in me a sense of beauty and heartache, no matter how mundane the stories themselves may seem. You weren’t writing about your own writing. You were talking about other people’s memoirs and stuff. But to me, I was like, Faith, you’re writing about your own stuff, because this is how I read your stuff. And I think you do it so well. Do you have any advice for writers to be able to translate how we see those mundane things and see it with God’s perspective?
Faith Chang: Thank you. Thank you for that encouragement. I don’t know about advice, but I think it’s more a conviction and from that is why I write that way. One thing in the back of my mind when I write is I really want my writing to be an apologetic of sorts. Not in terms of arguing, you’re wrong because of this… I think what really compels people is beauty and stories.
James K. Smith writes about this in his Desiring the Kingdom trilogy, and just the idea that we are not just thinking beings—we live from our hearts and we live out of our vision of what flourishing looks like. Scripture is a narrative. It is a story, and we live out of our stories. And if our theology is not seen in that way, then there’s something that’s lacking.
I really appreciate in our tradition, Reformed circles, that clarity of thought. That comes more naturally to me like 1, 2, 3… this is what you believe about the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Scripture. That is actually something that’s natural to me. But at the same time, I think the temptation is to just make it, even when we talked about mystery, “it’s a paradox, it’s a mystery.” But you still understand. “It’s a mystery. I get it,” versus what storytelling does, is an invitation to really experience it.
Jonathan Rogers in the Rabbit Room, he talks about this a lot, showing versus telling. And there’s a difference experientially between showing as a writer and telling. My heart is to tell what we believe in a way that is showing. As an invitation to be like, hey, this is beautiful. Christianity just doesn’t just make sense in my mind. It makes sense in our lives. It makes sense in everything that we do and everything that we live out of, we believe, it resonates because it’s true. God is true. God is real. Jesus is real. What the Scriptures say about eternity is real. What it says about our present sufferings is real. And I think people experience that through story.
They need to know what’s true, but they experience it and feel it to be true. To say Jesus loves you is one thing, to read the gospels and see his love is another. We experience that with music too, right? We’re not just singing, Oh, I love the song, and it’s just, God loves me. God loves me. God loves me, and that’s it. But the best songs are like, hey, this is what it looks like. That’s where capturing imagination and seeing blogging or seeing writing, less of let’s be exhaustive and let’s teach everything and more of like, an invitation to experience more of that truth of God is important.
I’m also learning from people who know the craft well, who know the craft of writing well. I think there are Christian writers who do that so well, like Zack Eswine, or Jen Pollock Michel, or Andrew Peterson, his new book, Adorning the Dark. They capture my heart. They’re not just telling me like, Hey, this is beautiful. Like, God is beautiful. You should think he’s beautiful. I know, that’s true. But I want to know why. I want to see it and experience that as I’m reading it.
That is my hope, to be like that. I think there is so much space for that. Solid, good theology, that’s true and based in the Scriptures. And at the same time that is true to life too. That will go to those dark places. That will go to those mundane places. That will go to life because we believe that all of life is under God’s rule and all of truth is God’s.
Aaron Lee: Faith, the more that I hear you talk, the more I can see that okay, obviously, you’re a gifted writer, but I do see that you have theological knowledge and you have artistic desire. You’re well read. You have all these traits that I feel that are gifts. Thank you for your writing ministry. One more question and then I think we’ll have to wrap up.
Your most recent article for SOLA, The Eucatastrophe of Human History. And in this, you’re talking about the incarnation. And you wrote, The thrill of hope we feel of the Incarnation comes in the context of deep darkness. And even though you wrote about this darkness, I found that your writing is actually ultimately very hopeful. You tend to write about real life, and the day to day grittiness. But I find your writing to be ultimately hopeful.
So what encouragement do you have for others, as we draw the strength to push on during dark times as Christians? And I would say dark times specifically as Asian Americans, or as mothers, with the perspective of writers? Dark times is a broad statement, but during trials, like how do you find the strength to push on and encourage others, from your perspective and your voice?
Faith Chang: For Asian Americans and mothers, it’s interesting because I think going through difficult things, especially in Asian American immigrant communities, there’s this good thing in terms of perseverance, in terms of grit and just getting through it.
But at the same time, there can be a, “You just gotta do it! That’s just life! Life is hard, and you just got to go,” which is kind of true to some extent, and we need to learn from that. But at the same time, there can be a “I have to push through by myself.” And that is not… that’s not the gospel. I think even mom blogs say things like that too. Where moms are like, “Go mom, flex, flex emoji, you got this!” Of course, sometimes we need that too from fellow moms. But as we go through dark things, more and more, when things are hard, really feel hard, that response is less and less helpful.
And I think what we have in the scriptures is a God who enters into our darkness, and says, yes, it is dark and doesn’t say, Hey, you got this, you got this, but, Yes, you are weak, but I’m strong and I’m life. So I think just knowing that we are not doing this on our own, we’re not pressing on by ourselves, and we’re not called to be like, it’s not that bad, it’s not so hard.
Or even in non-believing Chinese culture, they can be like, well, death is just death. That’s just life you know. But I think as believers we can really go to those places of, Hey, this is not how the world is supposed to be. This is not the way that the world is supposed to be, but we have a God who is near to the brokenhearted, who saves those who are crushed in spirit. We have a God who daily bears our burdens. And because of that willingness to face what is dark and what is truly horrible in death and also truly hard in life, He stepped into it—and because of that we have hope.