Isaiah 35:10

They return. Not fleeing further into exile, not wandering anymore, but returning to Zion, the city of God, the place of dwelling. And as they come, songs are on their lips and joy crowns their heads like a diadem. This is not quiet contentment but exuberant celebration. The joy is everlasting, not a temporary emotion that will fade but a deep transformation of their state of being. They obtain joy and gladness, these are not one thing but twin gifts, reinforcing and enriching one another. And what flees away? Sorrow and sighing. Not pain or challenge, those are not mentioned as fleeing, but the grief, the despair, the heavy exhalation that accompanies loss and separation. All those years of longing, all those nights of tears, all that yearning distance between exile and home, all that ends.

This is the vision that sustains faith through suffering. Not that suffering is pretended away or minimized, but that it is temporary, that it serves a purpose, that it is coming to a real end. We do not sigh forever. The sorrow we carry today does not define the eternity we are moving toward. There is a Zion to which we are returning, a city whose builder and maker is God, a place where He Himself will dwell with us. All that the redeemed experience in that moment, the return, the songs, the joy that is not fragile but everlasting, the absence of sighing, all of that is secured by the work of Christ. He has ransomed us. He will bring us home.