Through the Sewers and Into the Light

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, there is a scene that has haunted readers for over a century. Jean Valjean, the reformed convict who has spent his life learning what grace costs, hoists the unconscious body of young Marius onto his shoulders and descends into the sewers of Paris. The boy is wounded. The streets above are a war zone. The only way out is through.

And so Valjean walks. Through absolute darkness. Through filth that rises to his chest. Through tunnels where the air itself seems to rot. He stumbles. He sinks. At one point the muck nearly swallows them both. But he does not set the young man down. He shifts the weight, finds his footing, and takes the next step.

Hugo writes that Valjean moved forward with "the tenacity of a man who is saving a life." Not his own life — someone else's.

That is perseverance at its deepest. Not the grit of personal ambition, but the refusal to quit when another soul depends on you. The Apostle Paul understood this. He told the Galatians, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

There will be seasons in your faith that feel like a sewer — dark, suffocating, with no visible exit. Keep walking. The God who carried you into that tunnel is the same God waiting at the other end, where the light breaks through.