Miles Beneath the City of Light

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, there is a scene that has haunted readers for over a century. Jean Valjean — ex-convict, reformed man, relentless in his love — descends into the sewers of Paris carrying the unconscious body of young Marius on his back.

The journey is not short. Hugo describes miles of darkness, fetid water rising to Valjean's chest, passages that narrow to near-impassable tunnels. Valjean is not a young man anymore. His body aches. The weight of Marius threatens to push him under. At one point he sinks into a pit of mire and nearly drowns. But he does not set the young man down. He does not turn back. Step by agonizing step, he presses forward through the darkness toward a light he cannot yet see.

This is what perseverance looks like in the life of faith. Paul wrote, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:9). There are seasons when the path forward feels underground — dark, suffocating, with no visible exit. The burden we carry — grief, illness, a prodigal child, a marriage buckling under strain — presses down until our knees threaten to give way.

But the God who sees us in the tunnel is the same God who placed the exit ahead. Valjean emerged into daylight. And so, by the grace of the Almighty, will you.