I just finished reading The Book Thief, a novel by Markus Zusak, which I’ve been working on for at least six months. I’d started it twice before finally getting into it, not because it is boring – the writing is lovely – but because it is, at times, unbearably sad. The story takes place in Nazi Germany in the early days of World War II, and the narrator is Death personified. The narrator describes visiting concentration camps and homes destroyed by bombs as he collects the souls of those who had died there. There were moments when I couldn’t read more that a few pages at a time.

Then, on Sunday, I tagged along with our youth groups on an Interfaith Tour hosted by the National Conference for Community and Justice. We visited a church, a mosque, and a synagogue, and learned about the similarities and differences between these different faith traditions.

At the synagogue we visited, the rabbi showed us the Torah scroll their congregation uses in worship, and then pointed out a much older scroll that had been salvaged from a synagogue in Eastern Europe after the Holocaust. It now sits near the door of the synagogue as a grim reminder of the six million Jews that were visited by Death during that time. It was worn out and almost unreadable in spots, but it was clear that there was a holiness surrounding it.

When I complained to my sister, who had encouraged me to read The Book Thief, that it was just too sad, she said, “There is a lot of sadness, but it ends with hope.” It was that promise that got me through the most painful parts of the story. And she was right – I won’t give away the end, but there is a little glimmer of hope.

I thought of that as I looked at that Torah scroll that represented the meaningless deaths of so many people. Because behind that hard reality was this truth:  written on those now-unreadable pages were the words that remind us that God walks with us through our darkest days.

Lent is a dark season that takes us into the wilderness where temptations abound. It’s a season that does not let us get away with simple prayers of thanksgiving but demands confession and even repentance. It’s a season where hope seems hard to find.

But sometimes hope shines through in unlikely spots: the hope of dozens of teenagers gathered on a Sunday afternoon to learn something about somebody a little different from them. It’s the hope that maybe, someday, we’ll figure out how to live and love together the way that God intends.

May you find glimpses of hope in your Lenten journey this week.