Defiant Hope

This past year has changed me.

There are seasons of life that feel inconvenient. And then there are seasons that feel like they break you open — physically, emotionally, spiritually — and leave you wondering who you are on the other side.

As I’ve reflected on my healing journey this year, I found myself back in a moment in Acts of the Apostles 14:19–24 — the story of Paul the Apostle returning to Lystra after being stoned and left for dead.

It’s a passage about resilience. About calling. About courage.

But more than anything, it’s about defiant hope.

Paul had just experienced one of the most violent moments of his ministry. A crowd, stirred up by opposition, dragged him outside the city and stoned him. They thought he was dead. They left him there.

And yet Scripture tells us that after the disciples gathered around him, he got up.

Got. Up.

Then — unbelievably — he later returned to the very place that nearly killed him.

Why?

Not to prove something. Not to seek revenge. Not to pretend nothing happened.

He returned to strengthen the believers there. To steady their faith. To remind them that suffering was not the end of the story.

This year, healing hasn’t meant pretending the pain didn’t occur. It hasn’t meant minimizing what was lost or glossing over how hard it was.

Healing has meant getting up.

Not instantly. Not dramatically. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes trembling. Sometimes unsure of how steady my legs would be.

But getting up anyway.

There’s something sacred about the space between being left “for dead” and choosing to rise again. That space is where God does deep work. It’s where identity gets refined. It’s where fear loses its grip — not because it disappears, but because it no longer rules.

The part of the story that grips me most isn’t that Paul survived.

It’s that he returned to Lystra

There’s a difference between surviving something and revisiting the place where it happened.

Returning to Lystra wasn’t reckless bravery. It was rootedness. It was clarity about calling. It was a declaration that suffering would not dictate the boundaries of obedience.

We even find later on in Paul’s ministry, he returned the Lystra and met Timothy (Acts 16:1), which would’ve not happened if he had not been obedient to get up and go back to Lystra.

This year, I’ve had my own “Lystra” moments — places, memories, conversations, or challenges that once felt unbearable. And the invitation hasn’t always been to avoid them. Sometimes it has been to re-enter them differently.

Not as a victim.

Not as someone defeated.

But as someone healed — even if still tender.

There is power in returning not to relive the pain, but to testify that it did not destroy you.

When Paul revisited those believers, he told them, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

That’s not exactly a greeting-card verse. It doesn’t promise ease.

But it does promise meaning.

Tribulation is not evidence that God has abandoned us. Often, it is evidence that something eternal is being formed in us. Strength. Compassion. Depth. Authority. Empathy for others who are still lying outside their own city gates wondering if they’ll make it.

This year has taught me that hope is not fragile optimism. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not denial.

Hope is defiant.

It looks at what tried to crush you and says, “You don’t get the final word.”

Defiant hope gets up when it would be easier to stay down.

Defiant hope returns — not because the wounds don’t matter, but because the calling does.

Defiant hope refuses to let the worst day define the rest of the story.

I don’t know what your Lystra is. Maybe it’s illness. Loss. Betrayal. Burnout. A dream that collapsed. A season that felt like too much.

But here’s what I’m learning: experiencing a death of a vision is not the same thing as being finished.

Sometimes the holiest thing you can do is stand up again.

And sometimes the most powerful testimony of healing is walking back into the place that once broke you — not to prove your strength, but to reveal God’s faithfulness.

That’s the kind of hope I’m holding onto now.

Defiant.

Alive.

And still believing I will walk again.