"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." That is what Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 15:19. Our present life, no matter how pleasant, is still unfair, incomplete and painful.

Because mortal life is mortal life -- complete with being imperfect and a time of trial -- the promise we have is not that we will avoid being mortal or that we will avoid trials, but that after it is over, God will make us whole.

To the extent we know anything of the eternal perspective, we know that we were anxious to be born and saw the experience as worthwhile enough that we were willing to accept all of the shortcomings that we now feel or think we know that life has.

If mortal life were the end and the final resolution of being, then Christ would make us miserable instead of bringing us joy and hope. Enoch's vision of God weeping over creation would be our final view rather than the introduction to the story of the redemption and the resurrection.

Things can be terrible, and they can overwhelm us in this life, but Paul also wrote
"For I am persuaded that neither life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39.

That is the hope we find in Christ, in spite of everything that happens to us.